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RE: Gems - Merging of totals from old I-Mark software
- To: "Rcr List (E-mail)" <rcr@dieboldes.com>
- Subject: RE: Gems - Merging of totals from old I-Mark software
- From: "Ken Clark" <ken@dieboldes.com>
- Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 12:35:19 +0100
- Importance: Normal
- In-Reply-To: <01BEEFB6.9BA83110@sdn-ar-002neomahP044.dialsprint.net>
Title:
> The capability of Gems to be able to merge the results from
the
> old I-Mark software. The state of Tennessee is only
certified
> with the old I-Mark software, as well as, the old Touch
Systems
> AVTS units. Hence, we will need to run both the old
I-Mark
> software for the AVTS units, and the Gems software for the
Postal
> Ballots, and then merge the two different systems
totals.
>
>
> Jeff Hintz
> Global Election
Systems
This is now complete. It will be in GEMS
1.11.6 when it is released. Jeff, I will send you a pre-release for
testing today. Since this feature is only useful for Shelby, we'll hold
off on a general release for now.
To set up a database for importing IMARK
results, you need to:
- Create a GEMS database with matching
precincts, races, and candidates as the IMARK 1.1.3 database. Set up the
Export IDs to match the keys in the IMARK database.
- Set up a counter group and vote center category
for the IMARK results. The totals will be counted into the default vote
center for the vote center category. This vote center will have all
precincts of the IMARK database. The count method for the vote center
you can leave as AccuVote -- it doesn't really matter as long as it is
there.
There is now a new menu item under "File"
called "Import IMARK results". It pops up a dialog where you select the
vote center to count the totals into (the default VC above), and the IMARK mdb
to import from. Select the IMPORT button and it will do the
rest.
Caveats:
- This feature needs serious testing.
Really.
- You must have a separate counter group for the
IMARK import, it must have exactly one vote center, and that vote center must
have exactly one counter group and "memory card".
- There is no way for GEMS to know if the Export IDs
really match the IMARK database. If the IDs don't match, then GEMS will
import the results into the wrong counters without warning. Review your
export IDs very carefully, and do a serious L&A whenever using this
feature. In particular, be very careful that the candidate export ids
match the IMARK ids, since getting them in the wrong order will swap
results.
- GEMS checks that all counters are imported.
If a precinct/race/candidate is missing in the GEMS database, then the import
results will be wrong, and you will be warned. Don't ignore these error
messages. I decided not to issue a error if the GEMS has *more*
precincts/races/candidates than the IMARK database. If the totals are
not there, they are not there.
- The 1.1.3 IMARK database does not track ballots
cast by precinct, so there is no way to import those statistics. I have
faked the voter turnout results based on the race counters to
compensate. This should work fine as long as there is a precinct-wide
race in every precinct, or by extension a jurisdiction wide race. This
will give correct numbers in the SOVC and Summary reports, but the Card Cast
report will be completely bogus.
- You must not have any other counter related
process running when you do the import; specifically upload or central
count. The import just shoves the totals into the counts without any
respect to the GEMS poster, so the poster is likely to be unhappy if it is
running while the import process does its thing.
Ken