FW: Ballot Order Protocol

["Larry Dix" <ljdglobal@gesn.com>]

Please read the protocol document from John Elder.  John and I have
discussed this and I believe and know that we must adhere to this in order
to be successful.  As account/project managers, you must be the contact with
the customer and get sign offs on all ballot orders.  This is vital and has
proved its worth in a recent election where we did have the proper sign off.


Larry J. Dix
Vice President of Operations
Global Election Systems

-----Original Message-----
From: John Elder [mailto:jelder@spectrumltd.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 2:01 PM
To: 'Larry Dix'
Cc: David Dean
Subject: Ballot Order Protocol
Importance: High

It is extremely important that Project Managers and Operations adhere to
protocol in set lines of communication with Global customers.  Per Executive
Management memo, under no circumstances is the Products Division to contact
and/or participate in communications with customers.  It is the sole
responsibility of Project Mangers to obtain and relate production
information between operations and customers.  This will prevent any
miscommunication and avoid potential disasters and financial liability to
Global.

We must enforce our lines of communications and operational procedures to
ensure success. The production staff is being forced to communicate with
customers because of tight delivery schedules, lack of proper notification,
lack of providing required components and unavailability of Project
Managers.  If circumstances arise that a production schedule is in jeopardy,
the Project Manager must be available to address all production issues to
ensure timely and accurate delivery; or designate another Project Manager to
communicate temporally with customer and operations.  Operation's personnel
is not a candidate for designee in the absence of Project Manager - they
have their own responsibilities to manage: quality control, etc.

Again, the protocol for ballot printing is this:

*       Project Manager receives ballot order (with quantities), "Cards With
Report Units" (or VTS equivalent) and postscript files from customer
*       Project Manager emails above components to
ballotorder@spectrumltd.com
*       Products Division, or designee, builds ballot order database and
returns to Project Manager for customer sign-off
*       Upon receiving written sign-off from customer, Project Manager
notifies Operations Manager of written approval
*       Production will produce paper proofs of actual ballot and send to
designation per Work Order Instruction Sheet provided by Project Manager to
Products Division
*       Project Manager will receive written sign-off of ballot proofs and
notify Products Division of customer approval
*       Production will commence ballot printing after receiving
notification

This will hold the customer accountable for any ballot layout, VDF layout,
colors, text, etc. errors which may arise and not Global.  It has been our
experience the past few years that most ballot printing errors and/or
liability is due to miscommunication and to not following operational
procedures in the proofing process.

I am available to discuss isolated instances with you where these procedures
have been compromised.