Ken,
Unsolicited comments welcome. I do agree with most of the points in
your message. I do not look forward to making it work.
However, the counties are required to adopt an ADA compliant fix at the
precinct level. Most of those that have our OS system are going to go with a
blended system, at least in the near term.
Many have only recently purchased our OS and trained their staff,
voters, and pollworkers. They have been assured that it will work in
conjunction with our TS to satisfy ADA. I doubt they will
nullify that expenditure and make themselves look * by quickly
replacing it with TS (unless we offer them some very appealing
incentives). Also, many of our older customers do not want to leave the OS
world, and they will only purchase the TS as forced to.
Hopefully, the ADA requirements and the concerns you point out about
maintaining two systems will lead them all down the path to full TS. A few
are already looking in that direction. But,
blended systems are here for a while at least. If we make it work for them
(no fun in the support world), then they will likely stay
with us if/when they go full TS. If our blended system has major
problems, they will likely still go full TS, but with another
vendor.
Mark
There has never
been even a small-scale test of this kind, to my
knowledge.
My unsolicited
two cents is that this is a crazy way to run an election. Expecting
jurisdictions to train for and administer two systems is just nuts.
It is the worst of a paper-based election with the worst of an electronic
election. I wouldn’t worry too much about whether GEMS can receive
results from two systems simultaneously. Even if that were the case,
we could always fix GEMS. I’d be worried about whether poll workers
can send them.
Ken
-----Original
Message-----
From:
owner-support@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-support@dieboldes.com] On Behalf Of Mark Earley
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 4:31
PM
To:
Support
Subject: AVOS/TS
blended system uploads
With the new
ADA requirements facing our OS customers, they will likely be knocking on
our door to purchase TS units to compliment their existing OS systems with
one TS unit in each precinct - coexisting with the OS units in a
blended system. While there are some problems with programming such a
system (namely needing to have another Vote Center category created for
the TS units), these are hurdles that can be managed (I guess they
can - does anyone have thoughts on this?). My bigger concern is
handling the uploading of both TS and OS results via modem into the GEMS
server.
What are the
known issues relating to upload? I know that TS uses RAS while
OS uses regular serial com ports, thus the need for separate modem banks.
Can GEMS receive modem uploads from both OS and TS units at the same time?
Has this been tested in any kind of a medium to large scale test? Does
anyone have any experience with receiving both TS and OS modem
uploads?
Mark
Earley
850
422-2100 - office/fax
850
322-3226 – cell