GEMS election definition files

[Mark S Earley <meglobal@earthlink.net>]

The Florida Division of Elections is requesting two things from Global:

1. a listing of all of the files in GEMS that taken together fully define 
the programming of an election (precincts, districts, offices with 
districts and # to vote for, candidates, AV parameters, etc.)
2. a one page description detailing how to generate these files.

The Division requires each county to submit the files to the Division after 
the county holds their L&A public test. He wants to be able to provide each 
county with these specifics on January 7th or 8th. He intends to have a 
standardized filing requirement for all Global counties in Florida. In the 
past, Global counties in Florida were required to submit 5 paper reports to 
the Division detailing the various election parameters. With users 
switching to GEMS from VTS, he is requiring electronic submission of the 
files.

I believe that a simple backup of the database would fit the bill perfectly 
since it is small (for ease in sending to the Division), complete (it has 
everything needed to recreate the election), and simple to generate 
(compared to the many individual reports that counties using other systems 
must generate for each election - this could be a minor selling point).

Paul Craft of the Division mentioned he has looked at using backups of the 
election data from other vendors, but problems loading the backups onto his 
tabulation system precluded this. However, I do not believe there is any 
difficulty in loading a GEMS election backup onto another computer running 
GEMS, we do it all of the time. Are there any hidden concerns people have 
about using a backup of the database for filing? As an alternative, does 
anyone have a complete yet succinct listing of the files needed to fully 
recreate an election in GEMS?

This is my first posting to one of these groups - be kind.

Mark