I
have already submitted some of the control card files to David Dean of
Spectrum to determine if they have the capabilities to generate these cards as
they are printed today. I don't have a feel for what Spectrum
can and can't do, but David is working on it.
Currently, we have copyright on the control
card. If we put this ability into GEMS, we will lose that
control.
If
we generate a program specifically for Spectrum (or perhaps Spectrum
already has this capability) then we can maintain this
control.
I'm
a proprietary kind of guy. If you can only come to Global for the
product and we can print it the way the customer and our machine
needs to see it, then the customer is happy and Global has an additional
revenue stream. If a "Global" decision is made the other way, then
release the license to print them and don't copyright them. I just
wanted to bring to light that control cards, like AccuVotes or GEMS, have
value.
Ian
(P.S. Another of one of my pipedreams. I
haven't had one in a while.)
Needed for Testing in August 2001 for
Alameda:
(Disussed with Tab last week and Jeff
Dean several weeks ago).
Need ability in GEMS to generate Header Card artwork,
such that precinct number or name can be printed onto the Header Card by
Spectrum digital printing process.
Background: Large account (Alameda - 1117 precincts)
wants to do automated inserting using ballot styles, not precinct IDs.
This way they "pull" the ballots the night before from only approx. 125
stacks of ballots rather than 1117 stacks. Using the automated sorting
capability on the incoming side, the ballots will be presorted by precinct,
and processed several times via central count during the 7 days prior to the
election.
The customer wants to take the presorted precinct ballots,
place a header card for that precinct in front of the cards (either
provisional or absentee) and process the op scan ballots. They will
print up 4 or 5 Header cards for each precinct for a large election, but
they do not want to have to look at a report that tells them to insert
Header #299 for Precinct 205800. They want the PRECINCT No. or Name
printed by Spectrum on the Header card and to order Headers for each
election.
Steve Knecht
Global Election Systems
415-893-9941
office 415-893-9951 fax
415-225-6591
cell