RE: GBS/Wisconsin, State of

The following have been submitted by GBS on behalf of the State of Wisconsin:

(NOTE: Apparently the first 6 of these items were included in VTS)

1. Change the word "Write-In" to "Scattering" on all reports -- SOVC, Precinct and Election totals on the AccuVote.

This can be customized using the Locale.ini file that ships with GEMS.

2. Change the word "Precinct" to "Report Unit" on all resports and the AccuVote tape.

The GEMS reports can be changed through the Locale.ini.

The AccuVote reports can be customized with AccuBasic. Have GBS contact Guy Lancaster and see about getting their ABasic added to the list of reports that ship with GEMS. If the reports look like this with VTS, the ABasic should already exist somewhere.

3. Add the certification pagre to the SOVC report. Include the %RACE% variable.

7. Add capabilaity of pre-defining SOVC options so they don't have to be selected each time the report is created.

We will include these two new features in the next major GEMS release.

4. Download the "Vote Center" name to the memory card instead of the election title.

To my knowledge, VTS did not provide this. The 1.95 ROMs provide this feature, as will the upcoming 2.0 release. They should probably wait for the 2.0 release since we are trying to limit 1.95 to Minnisota.

5. Modify the Election Results tape from the AccuVote to include the statement: "Last Number from Poll Book."

Again, this would be their custom ABasic.

6. Wisconsin Party Preference election does NOT count correctly. This election is a state requirement in Wisconsin and worked correctly in VTS. If a Party Preference is selected, and the voter crosses over to, and votes for candidates of another party, the votes for the Preference Party candidates should be counted. Ballots and election setup included.

This was fixed in GEMS 1.11.4.

8. Headers -- Under Header Editor, Options, Placement Options, Specify column, the column designation does not work.

GBS should contact support on this one. If it is a bug, support can file a bug report. If I had to guess, they are specifying the columns starting at 0 instead of 1, but we'll have to see.

9. Eliminate requirement that ALL memory cards must be downloaded if the election is taken out of "Set for Election" mode (or create a super user that can bypass this situation. (This was also in VTS)

This was a bug in VTS. I'd rather not see the hole opened up in GEMS. The correct way to solve this is to store additional information in GEMS to track whether a memory card really needs re-download or not. This is not a simple project, and we don't have a timeframe for taking it on right now, but it is on our list.

In the mean time, they can contact us directly about the special circumstances that require re-download. If a large number of memory cards are involved, we can make the change for them after we find out what changes have been made, and if they are really safe to do so. This has worked reasonably well with our other accounts so far. Going out of election mode without programming memory cards should not be taken lightly.

10. Add capability to reject for Individual Blank/Undervoted races for -- Judges Initials

We will provide this feature in the AccuVote 2.0 release.

11. Expand the Precinct name field on the SOVC -- Need at least 25 characters.

25 w's or 25 i's? The current width is 1.25 inches, which I agree is too narrow. We'll increase it by half an inch. I would really like to see some of these things configurable, including the fonts used, but this is currently not high on the task list.

Ken