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