Accurate Data Collection

["Ian S. Piper" <ian@gesn.com>]

Customer Support Bulletin

 

I wanted to take this opportunity before Tuesday's elections to give you some tools for collecting data on election day problems.  Some of you may already be aware of these tips but others perhaps are not.  We need to collect accurate data from whatever problems occur in the field to properly diagnose and solve those problems.  Use the following tips to help in gathering that data more accurately.

1. The report from a pollworker saying "the AccuVote stopped taking ballots" is too vague for fault diagnosis.  When you're talking to a pollworker over the phone or on-site yourself, use the following nomenclature to describe the problem on your written report:
•    "No Ballot Movement", if the reader will not even turn on the motor when a ballot is inserted, or
•    "Keeps Rejecting Ballots", if the reader tries to read the ballot but rejects the ballot to the voter, but further to that, determine if the ballot is "Feeding Partially" or "Feeding Fully" before rejection.
2. If there is "No Ballot Movement" (i.e., the AccuVote appears to be hung-up), before turning off the AccuVote and restarting it, perform this procedure to help determine which AccuVote subsystem is the cause of the fault.  This is only useful with Firmware versions of PC 1.94p or higher and PC 1.94f< or higher.
•     Press the AccuVote's "NO" button for at least three (3) seconds
• If the visible light reader is hung-up, then the LCD will respond with the message "READ ABORTED BY USER".  After 30 seconds (or however long the message delay is set), the display will revert back to the Poll Counter.
• If the AccuVote CPU Board is hung-up, then the LCD display wil not change.
3. Always record the serial number of the unit that experienced the problem, the precinct that was using that unit, and any other useful information that can be recorded (e.g., time of day, number of ballots counted, etc.).

 

I thank you in advance for your help in our product development.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ian S. Piper

Manufacturing Manager

Global Election Systems, Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Ian S. Piper

Manufacturing Manager

Global Election Systems, Inc.