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RE: AVTS/BS 4.1.11/WinCE 2.1.2 soft reboot?



From: owner-support@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-support@dieboldes.com] On Behalf Of Lesley Thompson (earthlink)
 

Can anyone shed light on this?

 

Perhaps we could order a nightlight from Georgia.

 

There is really no hope of reproducing this.  I have spent some time thinking about how we might improve our ‘critical error recovery’ though.  The worst part about this is that the voter walked away without having their vote counted.  We have to prevent this at all costs.

 

Lets assume the analysis below is accurate (it sounds pretty plausible).  Here are a few concrete improvements to the software that could help:

 

(1)  We should write a ‘token’ to nonvolatile storage (flash) when we accept a voter card.  When the voter casts their ballot, we delete the token.  At power up, the software checks for the token and knows we crashed (for whatever reason) during voting if one is there.  Then we could log the event more accurately.  We could also force pollworker intervention when the unit comes back up, so humans are aware of the problem at the point that it happens.

 

(2)  At power up, right now we just unilaterally eject an inserted card without fanfare and without even reading it.  This isn’t good enough.  We should read the card, log that there was a card in the machine at boot, and log the details of the card.  Then we should pop up an error message and require pollworker intervention.

 

Ideally we would include some audio clues that a pollworker could hear as well, but alas the current internal speaker isn’t up to the task.

 

If we had something like the above, then at least the pollworkers would have known about the problem and could have issued the voter a new card and asked her to vote again.

 

Ken

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Schmidt, Connie, ELC" <Connie.Schmidt@jocoks.com>

To: "'Lesley Thompson (earthlink)'" <lesley@dieboldes.com>

Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 11:39 AM

Subject: AVTS/BS 4.1.11/WinCE 2.1.2 soft reboot?

 

 

> Lesley,

>

> We have some questions that I hope you can find answers.

>

> Here is the scenario:

>

> A voter inserted their voter card in a touchscreen.  Somehow the voter

card

> was ejected without the cast ballot being pushed...immediately after the

> machine audit tape indicates that the machine was rebooted - however, the

> machine was never turned off and on.  The Supervising Judge (SJ) has the

only key

> and has instructions to not turn the machines off if there is a reported

> problem.  They know to just close the lid and call our office.  That

> location has had several of the problem machines this time and the SJ has

> been following those instructions.

>

> Our internal brainstorming leads us to this conclusion.

 

Because of the voter receipt and the date and time stamp in ESM for the

computerized voter

> checkin we are able to determine which voter experienced this problem.  It

> is an elderly voter - we telephoned the voter to do a "voter satisfaction

> survey" - they loved the system and placed their voter card in the plastic

> container and received their "I Voted" sticker on the way out.

 

This leads us to believe that the voter's ballot appeared on the screen -

the precinct

> was validated to the voter receipt by the machine judge and the voter

> receipt was placed in the brown envelope for that voting machine.

Sometime

> during voting the machine did an internal reboot and ejected the voter

card

> to the voter.  The voter is elderly and simply took the card and placed it

> in the container and left.

 

The machine log indicates that the vote was not

> cast and that the machine was turned back on.  The SJ did not open the

> swinging door and turn the machine off and on.

 

I am concerned about this -

> can you check with your software folks and get an answer for us.  This

> appears to be something like a soft reboot happening within the machine

> which triggers the voter card to eject just like physically turning the

> machine off and on or pushing the Cast Ballot button.

 

As you will recall,

> we had several instances in August where the machine ejected the voter

card

> after the voter voted for just one candidate.  We understand that this

> problem was also reported by other jurisdictions in their September

> primaries.

>

> We need your assistance to problem solve this one.

>

> Thanks..Connie

>