This is now
complete. Support is in GEMS 1.16.1 and the upcoming AV
PC1.95e.
It appears Minnesota
has had a change of heart since Feb 99 and will instead continue to use the
absentee headers cards, but work was started on this feature before that
decision was made. Regardless, it would be in everyone's best interest
to test this now and find any problems. This will prevent the need
for a another ROM swap/release in the future should MN change their minds
or some another account need it.
To use this feature
you need to check the "Auto Absentee" checkbox in the GEMS setup AccuVote tally
settings. This flag tells the 1.95e firmware to determine the counter
group based on the card id if it can.
Next, you need
to set up the database to guarantee that the card ids are unique to a counter
group. Create a "polling" and "absentee" voter group 2. Create two
new races with no candidates and low id numbers. Attach the races to
the two voter groups. These races are used as psudo-headers on the
artwork, and will force a different card id. There is a new checkbox in
the race editor "Don't Count". Check that box to exclude the race from the
AccuVote tape and election night reports. This technique can also be used
to solve the Gwinnett County case where users want
seperate headers on the absentee cards, but have identical
races.
The AccuVote will
notice that the card id is unique to a counter group, and automatically put the
counters in the right slot, without the need for the absentee header
card.
Ken
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