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This is my input on the major action items that should be resolved
or at least looked at to prepare us for Gastonia upcoming
election.
First, after checking with Bill R., the
following hardware is at location at this time.
1. 50 standard Accutouch
units
2. 6 Accutouch Modem
units
3. Digital PC with 16
port Digi Board
Second, all units to
include the PC has Dunhill's 2.0 Software installed.
The following are major items we need to look at to configure
Gastonia for Election.
1.Program election on the new 1.1.3 software
and in GEMS for absentee ballots. At this time Jeff H. has the first pass
of the ballot for this election.
2. Return PC to McKinney to setup GEMS and
network ports for direct feed Accuvote and Accutouch as per Alameda setup.
2. Prepare and setup the printing of Accuvote ballots for absentee
mailings and curb side voting
3. Set up all 56 units at some NC location to
strip out Dunhill's 2.0 software. Since Microsoft Customer Support Staff
will help Gastonia at each polling place, we must have individual Win 95 license
copy for every unit.
4. Reinstall Win 95 with required options
(networking, dialup, etc...), and 1.1.3 software and all support DLL's and EXE
files as we did for Alameda.
5.
Install Database and set up test on all units. ( voting, transferring results,
precinct reports,downloading to host PC, reports)
6. Setup and deliver PC with required hardware
to support absentee ballots, modem upload, and direct upload as
required.
7. Setup and test early voting center. (one
poll book with probably 2 voting stations). We will need non precinct
specific poll book since this is early voting.
8. Modem upload capabilities will probably be required since they
will use this small election as a confidence builder for the November
elections.
9. Be prepared for the need of Reports, Reports, Reports.
Audit Trails, Ballot Images will be required.
10. Since the problems with last Novembers Elections this customer
still stood behind us and even gave us a good review when speaking to El Paso we
need to make sure that we test and retest everything to the fullest possible
measure.
Reviewing the Actual Schedule
1. March 5 - is when they will mail out absentees. We should have
them proof our ballots and sign an acceptance with the necessary lead time to
insure we can print the ballots. They will need Approximately 1000
ballots.
2. March 11 - they are probably expecting a
demo (like an small L&A) on this since we could not do absentee tabulation
at all last November. They had to hand enter each absentee by hand into a dozen
or so of Accutouch units.
3. March 16 - I suspect we need to do a walk through on the
complete software package. Ballot station, poll book, Accuvote for absentees,
and Gems to download, accumulate and report all. Also note they were not happy
last time about the fact that we could not show results being accumulated and
instant reporting of the results as they were down loaded. They were
promised a video out port were they could see election night totals for each
office scrolling on a video screen that was instantly updated as they downloads
occurred. Similar VTS does at St. Lucie County, Florida, when you login
into VTS on a terminal and look at the election reports scrolling and updating
as results come in after elections or closed.
4. March 17 - self explanatory
5. March 19 - Gastonia Chairperson on the Board of Elections has a
personal friend in Microsoft's Customer Support & Quality Assurance Division
at Charlotte. They will be stationed at the different precincts as technical
help to poll workers.
6. March 20,24,27, April 10- Poll Worker Training By Sales
Staff
7. March 30 - The start of One stop voting (Early voting, but at
only one location)
8. April 14 - Limited quantity of units pull on spot for small
L&A. Must go through every step of an election.
9. April 20 - Full blown and open to public L&A - Last time we
had to vote on all units then reports printed for every precinct. Full election
process.
10.April 23 - Full day of delivery and setup. Representative of
Global must go to each site to supervise setup. preferably the same site he will
monitor on the actual election day.
11. April 24 - Election Day - self explanatory - We will need to
come up via software to present to the public visually the election results as
they come in "Live".
12. April 26, 27, & 28 - It will be necessary that we include
all files from Accutouch (BRS,CRS,VHS, AUDIT) as part of the transfer of results
on election night. All of the files should already be in the Central PC to
view and to report. Also be aware that we will have three (3) different
sources. Absentee, Early Voting (One Stop) and Election Day. I know
they will want to report these separately from each other, then combined
in different combinations, and finally total. They will need for
canvassing individual precinct reports from the central computer, just as the
poll book give each precinct official on election night.
We will need to send them a
ballot on demand printer they purchased. Since we did not have one
available for the last elections we let them use a HP 5000 that was returned to
McKinney and now is being used for Alameda.
I am sure I have forgotten something, but after everyone's review I
am sure we will cover all the bases.
Any questions, just ask...
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