-----Original Message-----
From: owner-support@dieboldes.com
[mailto:owner-support@dieboldes.com]
On Behalf Of Sue Page
Sent: November 12, 2002 2:13 PM
To:
Support
Subject: Feedback from Maryland
Maryland had a terrific
election on November 5. 5100 units were implemented in 500 precincts
across 4 Counties. Voter turnout was moderately heavy. The R6 units were
enthusiastically received by the voters.
Montgomery County resolved all
of their process issues that caused delayed openings and closings in the
Primary. They were 90% reporting by 10:00, and completed the election at
11:40 (missing only 4 PC Cards). In fact, the 10:00 news showed the
"Diebold" Counties as 60% of the early results, with those Counties consisting
of only 40% of the voters.
We're working on a detailed report, which will
be shared in the future. For now, however, I wanted to capture the
following issues/comments/suggestions:
1. Party Designation on the
Instructions and Summary Pages
One small issue kept the election from being
"perfect" in Maryland. There was one legislative district that retained
the party designation from the Primary, rather than being changed to Non
Partisan. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity to catch this in the
proofing process, unless you do a manual L&A (which is nearly impossible on
2600 units). The "Test Count" does not display the Instruction page.
Is this a change that could be made on the front end? a. Why is the Party
designation on the Instruction page and the Summary page? It is in the
header of the ballot. b. Why not eliminate the Instructions Page all
together? Post printed instructions in the booth. (This would
simplify many issues, such as changing TS Text, and hard coded info on this
page.) c. The Party designation has to be changed in every district
between the Primary and the General, leaving many opportunities for
failure. Why not have one option that changes them all
automatically?
This could have been caught by means of preliminary review of races and candidates in GEMS Pre-Election reports, as most, if not all of the race reports should list races with voter groups. It is absolutely essential that these reports be reviewed in addition to the actual touch screen ballots.
2. Write-Ins
Montgomery County's attorney insisted on capturing the
write-in votes for the registered candidates - - by precinct. Because this
must be done on EACH PC CARD that includes a write-in vote for a registered
candidate, this involved 4000 data entry edits. 2000 edits to remove the
"other" votes, and 2000 entries to move the votes to the registered candidate.
Is there a better way?
Don't write-in votes have to be captured by precinct in order to be able to report a correct precinct-based canvass? Once all results have been upload from the AccuVote-TS units, the AccuVote-TS Write-In Report may be printed in order to list all write-in candidates by race, vote center, and report precinct. After manually tallying write-in candidates by race and report precinct on the report, write-in candidates are entered by report precinct.
3. Election Summary Report by Precinct
Maryland candidates are used
to precinct level reporting. There is no easy way to print the Election
Summary report with all precincts, sorted by precinct. Montgomery County
had to initiate the printing of the Election Summary Report 227 times, each time
selecting a different precinct. They printed these reports after the
election, after the canvas, and after the overseas ballots - altogether
initiating 681 separate reports (and the same for the html file, which they
posted to their web site). Perhaps this has already been improved in something
beyond GEMS 1.17.17 - but if not . . .
Click on the Precinct radio button in the Election Summary Report radio button, select the desired precincts, click on the 'Sort Precincts by Name' check box, and click on Print.