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Update on this problem and tentative explanation.
With Jeff Hintz help, we have determined that this problem was due to the following;
On Gems a font was selected as Arial Narrow 11. When downloading to a NT version VTS all of the fonts represented on the screen were the same. But when down loading to a WIN 98 VTS (that is what El Paso has) in some of the races the Font was different from each other even though it was the same database. Our assumption is that WIN98 AVTS did not have the font available within its library and it just took a font it felt the most correct. If all were the same then it would not have been a problem, but since font selected was arbitrary that is why we had complains.
Will we see this again with the R6 units? (CE vs. NT) Should the program warn you on start up that the font required are not available?
The best fix for El Paso is to replace old R4 units with new R6. That is what will happen before their next election in November 2002. They have 135 R4 AVTS with WIN 98. They just received 100 R6 to replace old units but we still need 35 more R6’s to complete the change over.
Thanks Jeff.
-----Original Message-----
We have had a complaint in El Paso, Texas. It is alleged that during the past runoff election on one particular race that the font for one candidate was some how presented in a different font or type face than the competing candidate. Since this candidate lost, she claims unfair advantage to the winner since it is alleged that his font was larger than hers, thus, enticing the voter to chose her opponent instead of her.
I have discussed this with Rodney Turner since he was the Global Support Representative for this account at the time; and he has looked in GEMS and assures me that Arial Thin 11 was used for both candidate names.
Question # 1; is it possible that during the download to the R4 units that this font may have been changed by the Ballot Station software when it was rendering the GEMS originate font or type face?
Question # 2; is there a way to make sure that what was sent as a font type was indeed what was rendered on the Ballot Station with out just by eyeball alone. Since this is what has created the dilemma in the first place by someone who has made the assumption that it is different just because that is what they perceived by looking on the screen, I would like to be in our explanation to El Paso, a bit more scientific about this. Specially that we are waiting for them to sign a county wide order for three (3) million dollars soon, (I hope).
If this goes to court we may have to prove that it is the same. I will arrive on site on Monday the 15th and I will get a copy of the GEMS data base and a copy of a ballot station disc files to send as a follow-up to this bug track.
We need to defuse this ASAP. Please respond, thanks.
Juan A. Rivera Diebold Election Systems (214) 335-3478
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