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