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BOD printer /printing serial numbers on ballots



Greetings:
 
The subject of printing serial numbers on ballots has reared its' head again.  BELOW is what was discussed before.  El Paso County, TX, who is going county wide, and uses the BOD printer exclusively has again requested this function be added to GEMS.  Norfolk, Va is also requesting this function to the BOD printer.
 
How should I respond?  Can I give them a time frame? Thanks.
 
Rodney D. Turner
Diebold Election Systems
rodney@dieboldes.com
214-642-6289
 
 
 
Tab, I hope these answers help you.  If not, please give me a call.
 
  1. Does this not violate voter secrecy? Some states have legislation that prohibits any identifying mark on the ballot that would allow someone to identify the voter who cast the ballot. 
No, in Texas they track their ballots by putting serial numbers on them (Texas Election Code 52.062).  They have something that is called a ballot-register that they must keep, so they know where their ballots went and how many.  

    2.    If we were to implement the 'automatic' incrementing of serial numbers, how about ballots that do not print correctly? Can we just ignore this problem and have 'missing' serial numbers.
 
NO.. we would have to have a way to reprint the ballot with the correct serial number.
 
    3.    What kind of audit logging to they want, if any?
 
No audit log needed....
 
    4.    Is printing the serial number next to the ballot/precinct label at the bottom of the ballot acceptable, or are they going to want to place the serial number somewhere in the header of the ballot? Implementing this would be a lot of work.
 

I understand.  The counties would accept whatever we decide to place the serial number. Printing the serial number next to the ballot/precinct label would be acceptable.

According to Ian, the font size would have to be the same.  So long as it is visible, I think where it would be the easiest to implement would be acceptable.

.
    5.    When does this have to be implemented by?
 
The sooner the better.  I know this will take some time. I just need to let the customer (Bexar County and Travis County) know we can do it, and will be able to deliver if they choose us as a vendor.  I can tell El Paso county that we are working on it.
 
Thanks.
 
Rodney
 
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: owner-rcr@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-rcr@dieboldes.com]On Behalf Of Talbot Iredale
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 5:35 PM
To: rcr@dieboldes.com
Subject: Re: serial numbers on ballots

Rodney,
 
    I have a few question regarding this RCR:
 
  1. Does this not violate voter secrecy? Some states have legislation that prohibits any identifying mark on the ballot that would allow someone to identify the voter who cast the ballot.
  2. If we were to implement the 'automatic' incrementing of serial numbers, how about ballots that do not print correctly? Can we just ignore this problem and have 'missing' serial numbers.
  3. What kind of audit logging to they want, if any?
  4. Is printing the serial number next to the ballot/precinct label at the bottom of the ballot acceptable, or are they going to want to place the serial number somewhere in the header of the ballot? Implementing this would be a lot of work.
  5. When does this have to be implemented by?
Tab
----- Original Message -----
From: Rodney Turner
To: rcr@dieboldes.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 8:49 AM
Subject: serial numbers on ballots

We are in the process of Best and Final Offer with two counties, Bexar County and Travis County.
We are going county wide with AccuVote-TS in El Paso county. 
These counties will all have BOD printers.  They are requesting that their BOD printer be able to print
serial numbers on their ballots.  They want to be able to manually set the first number, then have it
increment sequence ally from there.  This could seal the deal for at least one county, Bexar.  We would
win big points with El Paso and Travis.  We need to have an answer for them fairly quickly.  They will be making their
decision around the 29th of this month.  Thanks.