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Believe it or not,
this topic has been discussed in the past. There never has been much
fuss/demand so nothing has ever been done about it, but perhaps this is
changing. Fresno's solution is cute, but it way too complicated
for the task. Here is my alternate proposal.
We change
the AccuVote so that it prints an upload ticket when the memory card is
successfully uploaded. Poll workers are instructed to hand the upload
ticket to the receiver at the drop off site. Those units that don't have a
ticket get taken inside and transmitted, recounted, or whatever. No big
deal if the poll workers loose their ticket (red herring anyway), since the
drop off site will get already uploaded when they retry.
No software, no
autodialer, no pager.
Ken
If you've been around elections for 15 minutes, you know
that our AccuVote-OS results all come in during the first 45 minutes, then we
stand around waiting for the last 10% of the precincts, sometimes for
hours. Fresno has a method of avoiding this long wait. They have
developed a way to automatically capture the incoming precincts that send
results via modem,and get that info to their drop off sites around the
county. The drop off supervisor's job is to make sure that the AccuVotes
that aren't sent yet, do not get put into trucks, but instead are taken inside
the drop off site and results sent from there. Here is how they do
it.
- Fresno has some simple software that parses the GEMS Server
"log" file, looks for "finished" phrase and the first precinct number
following that word in the log file. From this the software knows
which vote center has reported. They capture the precincts from the
log's finish statement and write the precinct numbers to an Access
database. These precincts have reported.
- A PC with some simple software reads the Access database,
noting the precincts reporting.
- The PC then has an autodialer connected to a paging system
and pages the dropoff site.
- The Supervisor at the dropoff site reads the precincts that
have reported from their pager (up to 5 at a time) and
checks off the precincts on his checklist.
- Any precinct that drops off an AccuVote
NOT already checked off on their list, is immediately taken inside the
dropoff center and transmitted.
- Finally, if the precinct can't be transmitted from the drop
off site, and needs to be recounted for some reason, there are driving teams
spread around the county to bring in the ballots and AccuVote to be counted
at the elections office.
Fresno indicates they will give us this software after this
election. Sounds interesting, and I'm sure we can improve on it.
Fresno has 350+ polling locations.
Steve Knecht
Global Election Systems
415-893-9941
office 415-893-9951 fax
415-225-6591
cell 800-508-5710
pager
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