Counting federal absentees in Dakota

["Ken Clark" <ken@gesn.com>]

Right now Dakota counts their federal absentees (ballots with only fed races) by re-marking normal polling ballots and feeding them at the polls.  The actual fed abs ballots sent to the voters are created ad-hoc. 

 

They don't need totals for the federal absentees broken out, but they want to know the turnout figures for federal absentees.  Dakota had this suggestion for AccuVote close poll behavior:

 

Question:  Have all absentees been counted? (yes or no)
How many absentees have been counted? Yes, no, (same as date and time)
Are you ready to end election? (yes or no)
Are you sure? (yes or no)
Totals print

 

This is pretty creative, but there are technical problems.  First, this dialogue is not going to fit on the LCD.  The real question though is where these "how many absentees" number is going to be stored.  Its a card counter, so it has to be a card in GEMS, with races, that are counted in that poll.  If such a card exists, then they might as well have printed it and sent it to the absentee voters in the first place.

 

Ken