RE: Gems - Ballot On Demand

[Jeff Hintz <jhglobal@earthlink.net>]

Unfortunately, Gems has been sold to certain accounts that use the AVTS as 
their main mechanism for counting and then paper for their postal 
absentees.  So for those of us who have to deal with those accounts, we 
keep getting the complaint of how hard it is to print out the ballots.  If 
we could do a little more something to help out with this would be great. 
 As for RXLaser, as Ian stated, they cannot handle the Gems accounts,  and 
why would we contract with another company to do what Gems can do.

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From:	Ken Clark [SMTP:ken@gesn.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, January 26, 2000 4:06 PM
To:	Rcr List (E-mail)
Subject:	RE: Gems - Ballot On Demand

> Requested:    January 26, 2000
> Required:     For March Primary Elections
> Jurisdiction: Accounts that currently print BOD ballots.  El Paso, TX
>  Douglas, NE  Lancaster, NE  Shelby, TN  Gaston, NC


Must be election season;  time for the annual BOD RCR.

> We need a print window or modification to the current print
> window for the
> BOD customers that can bring up the Reporting Precinct Name not
> number, and
> the Party Name not card.  This way, they can select the ballots they wish
> to print without having to look up the information on one of our reports.


Official response:

Global has contracted with RX Laser to deliver Ballot On Demand
functionality.  Requests relating to BOD should be directed to them.  The
GEMS Print Artwork dialog is not, and was not designed to be, a Ballot On
Demand printing system.  It is designed to generate postscript files to
create typesetter's plates for printing.

GEMS does provide an export of the ballot artwork relationship data:
File->Export Results->Export Card Info.  This text file can be parsed and,
together with the a directory of postscript artwork files, used as input 
for
a Ballot On Demand system provided by RX or CMIS or whomever.  The export
file contains the report precinct name and party name.


Unofficial response:

This exact same request was sent by Jeff last year, and by Sophie the year
before that.  Repeating the official response is getting a bit tired.  It 
is
also more than a little unfair to anyone who has to deal with BOD accounts,
since they invariably end up having to make due with the GEMS Print Artwork
dialog and reports.

We'll see what we can do to make the print artwork dialog a little more 
"BOD
friendly".  It is not as simple as adding report precinct name and party
name, because that does not deal with multi-card ballots nor split
precincts.  We'll try to take care of those cases as well.

Disclaimers:

  a.. This doesn't make GEMS a BOD system.  Treating it as such is a
mistake.
  b.. This doesn't solve any of the problems associated with BOD printers
not meeting Ian's ballot artwork specification.  Using ballots that do not
meet spec is a mistake.
  c.. Continuing to sell BOD when we do not have a workable BOD system is a
mistake.
  d.. I didn't do it, no one saw me do it, you can't prove anything.
Ken

 << File: ATT00000.htm >>