----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 6:01
PM
Subject: Re: Wyle Certification
Material
Global Chouteau wrote:
Any and all, attached is a list of questions
relating to the feature additions that takes the release 1.94w to
1.96.1.......I would appreciate any answeres (even one) you can
provide...
> 2. Handling Precincts with no ballots. (and what and why this is
necessary)
It's for recounts in which some precincts have none of the
races that are being recounted.
Not sure what "handling" means. If the question
is why do they exist, the answer is simply that a registrar has mapped areas,
especially new subdivisions, that may or may not have new houses/voters, in
that area yet. Many counties have land precincted without voters in
them. Many times these are consolidated into other precincts in an
election, but other times the registrar is not quite sure whether the house
will be built before an election and they may/or may not have a voter.
> 3. Auto Absentee feature.( here I assume new ballots will have to be
printed)
Correct since they depend on separate ballot IDs for the absentee
ballots. See the Auto Absentee test databases at http://staff.gesn.com/resources/gems/databases/index.html
. From http://staff.gesn.com/lists/qatesting.w3archive/200103/msg00058.html,
"The Auto Abs Test 1 is with full pct IDs and Test 2 is with sequence IDs."
> 4. How to handle “Counter Group Header Group” cards…I could use an
explanation of the use of all the new Header Cards that can be used with
1.96.1
The Counter Group Header cards are designed for use with V2 ballots
which are not supported by 1.96. We do not currently supply CG header
cards. The V1 AV-OS supports 2 count groups which are predefined to be
Polling (CG1) and Absentee (CG2). Therefore 1.96 will recognize the CG
header cards and will interpret the CG 2 header the same as the Absentee Count
card and the CG 1 header the same as the Polling Count card.
Guy, this whole section above and below is
confusing to me. Are these some new functions not presently
implemented yet?
5. Group Header, Poling” cards, or “No
Override Header Card” after using the Absentee Header Card..
You're
mixing V1 and V2 header cards here. The No Override Header is what I
call the Count Group Separator card which is coded as CG0. It would be
used to clear a count group override in effect by using the CG header cards as
CG overrides which only has meaning with V2 ballots or, to a limited extent,
when Auto Absentee is enabled.
In order to implement the Auto Absentee feature, we had to implement a way
that would detect the CG from the ballot ID and therefore these cards act as
override cards when the AA feature is enabled. Unfortunately using these
headers with AA causes all ballots to be rejected if the CG is actually
changed so there is no good way to demonstrate this mode.
> 6. How to explain the use clearing old overrides before setting new
overrides.. Please explain “overrides” and how to use the ballots we now have
to demo this change.
To override means to override the ID printed on the
ballot. The only override that has meaning with V1 is the precinct
ID. Ballots counted after using a precinct header card are counted to
that precinct until a precinct separator card is used to clear the
override. For V2 we would also encode the CG in the ballot ID and
therefore the idea of a CG override would make sense.
> 7. Same questions when using the Accu-Feed unit.
We use a
different model for auto feed vs. manual feed when dealing with header
cards. For manual feed, you need to press the YES and NO buttons in
order to process a header card. Therefore there we have
confirmation that you actually meant to process that card. With auto
feed we do not require holding buttons so we use the idea of a deck to ensure
that you really mean to process the given header cards. In this case, an
override, pct or CG, must be cleared before another override can be used and
before the ender card can be used.
> 8. Where do I get the override cards..?
You should have precinct
header cards. There is no way to demonstrate CG override with V1 but I
could send you some CG header cards which would act the same as the Abs Count
and Polling Count header cards.
> 9. Explain “check that the card is valid for the current count group”.
I assume this is active only in pre-election mode.
The V1 AV-OS has
support for 2 count groups which we call polling and absentee. If you
encode the CG on the ballot as we do indirectly for the Auto Absentee feature,
then you could use an override card to override the CG in the ballot ID.
What 9 says is that we actually check that the CG is valid for the card style
and reject the ballot if not. Prior to this we would accept it anyway
because the V2 AV-OS has the counters even if they're not valid. What
this really means in practice is that since for V1 we need different card
style IDs for Polling and Absentee ballots when Auto Absentee is enabled, we
will reject the ballot if you try to override the CG because no other CG is
valid.
> 10. Need to demo the up to 48 character precinct name capability.
Then you'll need to prepare an election database with 48 character
precinct names, download a VC, and print a totals report.
> 11. Is there any way to demonstrate the “download protocol version
doesn’t need to be pre-selected in GEMS…?
No, not yet. This awaits
GEMS support which probably won't make sense until the pre-1.96 firmware has
been largely phased out.
What prevented this in the past was that the AV waited for the host to
identify the protocol first even though both ends were really supposed to
declare themselves at the same time. This meant that GEMS had to be told
what protocol to use before it could download. All we changed was to
have the AV identify itself first so that at some point in the future we could
use this to avoid the need to pre-identify the protocol in the GEMS AV
options.
Guy