RE: Polling (anti-absentee) header cards

["Ken Clark" <ken@dieboldes.com>]

Minnisota accounts currently count their absentees in the polls using absentee header cards after their polls close.  This delays the uploading of results, because of the time needed to physically feed the ballots.  They would rather feed the ballots during a slow period during the day.   

 

This is now complete and will be in AccuVote PC1.95e.

 

There are three new header cards for the AccuVote.  They will only be accepted by 1.95e and later releases.  They work in an analogous fashion to precinct header cards, only instead of overriding precincts, they override counter groups.  They are:

Counter Group Header, Polling
Counter Group Header, Absentee

Counter Group Header, No Override

If you have more than one counter group in a vote center, you can use these cards to override the counter group into which counters are stored.  The 1.95 firmware can store two counter groups.  2.0 will allow more.

 

The old Absentee Header card behaves exactly like the new Counter Group Header, Absentee card.  To the AccuVote, absentee is now just another instance of a counter group.  We can in fact generate challenge, early voting, or whatever cards if it ever comes up.  If you have the old absentee header cards kicking around (i.e., you live in Minnesota), you can keep using them with 1.95e if you prefer.

 

The Counter Group Header, No Override card, not too surprisingly, tells the AccuVote to not perform any counter group override.  As with precinct header cards, you don't have to feed this card before a different override.  You do need this card though if you want to override a counter group, and then go back to not overriding.

 

The AccuVote behaves slightly differently after feeding the Cancel Override card depending on whether you have "auto absentee" checked in the GEMS AccuVote tally settings or not.  See recent "Absentees in polls without Absentee Card" RCR.  When auto absentee is selected and there is no override, the AccuVote will try to determine the counter group based on the card id.  When auto absentee is not selected, the card behaves exactly like the Counter Group Header, Polling card.  This is purely academic however, because there would be no point in ordering a No Override card unless you intended to use the auto absentee feature.

 

Ken