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RE: CALIF. AVTS Certification Questions needing Answers



Item 10 Ken/Tab Software Design Doc - I think I know the answer to this, but..... Is there a software design document that was used to develop this software?

 

There is the Technical Documentation Package we sent to Wyle.  You can get a copy from Dix.

 

The name of this document is the “AccuVote-TS System Software Specification Manual. I can have one printed and shipped to you.  Let me know when you need it.

 

Larry J. Dix

Vice President of Operations

Global Election Systems

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com]On Behalf Of Ken Clark
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 4:28 PM
To: support@gesn.com
Subject: RE: CALIF. AVTS Certification Questions needing Answers

 

From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com]On Behalf Of Steve Knecht
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 1:31 PM
 

Item 3.  Ken/Tab RETENTION: Explain how we meet the federal, 22-month election retention requirements.  Are all logs (if there are more than 1) sent to GEMS where they can be backed up and stored on tape or diskette?  Whatever logs there are have to be retained for the 22 months period.  How do we accomplish this? 

 

Print it to tape.

 

Uploading of log entries is a reasonable RCR, and it has come up before.  Unfortunately, unless we do some pretty clever compression of the logs, it is not doable.  We can't stall upload on election night, and we can't bloat the GEMS database with a gigabyte of useless "ballot cast at 1:35pm" entries.

Item 4.  Ken MAGNIFICATION: What is the percentage increase of the font for magnification (i.e., 20%,
30% ,50%). 

 

We scale by 133%.  But my real answer is, it doesn't matter, why do you ask.  It should probably be configurable by the user, and probably will be one day.

Item 5. Ken CE ACCESS:  Provide a definitive answer to the question whether a poll worker,
voter, or other unauthorized persons could in any way gain access to CE.  Yesterday you implied that it is a function of a "flag" or something in CE which is loaded onto the Motherboard.  Is this the case?  If so, then please Explain the meaning and use of the "Enable Taskbar" function in the Supervisor Menu. 

 

This is actually an extremely complicated question.  But here is the short answer.  You need to put a tamper-proof security seal on the lock, just like with the AccuVote-OS.  Breaking the seal needs to be witnessed and signed off by more than one person.  It is not possible to access the OS without opening the door.

 

As to the enable taskbar function, it will be gone in 4.1.3.  I gather from you that it doesn't work anyway (despite the lack of bugtrack).

Item 6 Ken BALLOT RANDOMIZING: Naegle wants to know how we "randomize" the ballots when we store them.  We weren't clear how the ballot serial number or Seq. Nos. related to this.  Naegle wants teh "algorithm" for randomizing the ballots. 

 

Hmm, this is one of those "I wonder if they know what they are asking" questions.  We use a linear congruential sequence generator to randomize the ballots.

Item 7. Ken  CE SIZE: How many "bytes" does the CE operating system take up? 

 

Lots.  (ugh -- searches)  5,220,991 bytes

 

It is a meaningless number.

Item 8 Ken BS Software Size: Naegle wants to know "how many lines of Code" the ballot station software is.  (Roughly) 

 

Roughly:  lots.  (expletive deleted)  70951 lines.

Item 9: Ken RCR to Return to Summary Screen:  Our present summary screen allows voter to touch a race and go to that page.  Is there an RCR to return directly back to the summary page somehow (new button or whatever)? 

 

There is not.  I hope there will no be one forthcoming.

Item 10 Ken/Tab Software Design Doc - I think I know the answer to this, but..... Is there a software design document that was used to develop this software?

 

There is the Technical Documentation Package we sent to Wyle.  You can get a copy from Dix.

 

Um, yeah, that is what we used to develop the software.

 

Ken