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I am taking this to the "Support" list where I think
this discussion should take place.
Lesley,
First, as for any error that was
displayed on election night, I was informed that an "SEH Error" was reported but
I have not been able to find out any information about when this occured or any
other information about this error. Rob had indicated he though the error
might have been the result of a memory card being removed before the transfer
was complete, i.e. while the AVTS was trying to write the audit log
entry, since the upload did actually complete.
Secondly, a laymans description of
the problem. During "Transfer" the AVTS unit, for performance
reasons, stores race and candidate information for the vote
center in memory (caches) rather that reading from the memory card. When a new
card is inserted for "Transfer" this data should have been cleared but was not.
Therefore when the next memory card was inserted the cached data was incorrect,
if the memory card was for a different vote center, and therefore the race
and candidate identifiers for the counts were potentially incorrect. The
problem did not accure when using the "Accumulator" since only the memory cards
from a single vote center were transferred during a "Transfer"
session.
I have added additional comments
below.
Tab
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 8:04
PM
Subject: Re: Ballot Station v4.0.11
"anomaly" and other JoCo questions
Tab, my apologies, I just put the To: field on my view so I can see what
groups are conversing...I'm still trying to navigate through all the "systems"
here. Yet and still, can you offer a clearer explanation of what
happened so I can understand from a "layman logic" viewpoint? And,
I know we discussed an R6 error alert election night...do you have a record of
what that code was and if it was caused by the 4.0.11 bug (Transfer vs.
Accumulator)? JoCo requests more information than is currently in
the report of findings. I know it seems as though we are beating a dead
horse, but I've got to be able to "draw a picture" of this
occurence. Can you help me? If I should be directing these
questions to someone else, please advise. Lesley
Talbot Iredale <tiredale@gesn.com> wrote:
Lesley,
This is not a bug so please do not send these type of
discussions to
bugtrack. This should have been sent to support
instead.
Tab
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lesley
Thompson"
To:
Cc: "stevem"
; "barry"
Sent: Thursday, April 25,
2002 3:54 PM
Subject: RE: Ballot Station v4.0.11 "anomaly" and other JoCo
questions
>
> Hello Jeff,
>
> R6 ERROR
MESSAGES: at the risk of contradicting...while we did not receive
>
error messages on the GEMS side, we did receive error messages on
the
> AVTS-R6 units during the upload using the Transfer function.
Specifically,
> Connie then asked what she should do when the error
message occurred and the
> machine locked up. I seem to remember that
she was told to leave off the
> machine she was working on and use the
one next to it. She and Kris
> continued to receive error code
messages during the upload, and moved around
> through the three units
as they were brought back up. The next day Robert
> Chen was able to
recreate the error message once. Since this was not
> mentioned in the
report, I am now being asked what the error messages were
> and what
they meant.
If you continually recieve error
messages on an operation this is a very good indicator of some problem and
should be investigated.
>
> CENTRAL UPLOAD ONLY: I
am also concerned, because due to this incident,
> JoCo is opting to NOT
modem in results from regional substations, much less
> precincts. They
are planning to set up parallel GEMS server systems to
> upload all PC
cards centrally, twice. That way they have two reports from
> the same
data loaded into separate systems to compare and audit. Is there
> no way
we can provide some kind of report off the Regional upload units that
>
can be compared to some kind of report from GEMS to be accountable that
an
> "anomaly" has NOT occurred? What is our "standard" check and balance
proof
> for returns on election night?
Not doing modem uploads from the regions seems like a
strange response to their problem since the region uploads did not have any
problem. As for doing duplicate uploads, this would not have found the problem
since, if they uploaded the memory cards in the same order on each machine, they
would have identical (erronous) results in both databases.
>
> ELECTION SETUP DATABASE TECH REVIEW:
During the discussions around the JoCo
> April 2 election, I have come to
understand that a "typical practice" used
> by technical support reps is
to review the customer's database prior to the
> initial ballot order
generation. I understand that JoCo
> (Connie/Kris/Debbie) sent you the May
all-mail election database for review.
> They were concerned that you
turned around your comments back to them in
> less that "5 minutes."
Exactly what in the database do we look for when
> reviewing? Are there
certain checkpoints or typical mistakes that you look
> for? Do you run
ballot styles off the database to make sure they work? Do
> we have a
laundry list of review elements? I am being asked to provide
>
documentation describing what our election setup database review covers,
can
> anybody help me with the basic
elements? How do we know a customers
> database will actually perform as
intended? Do we also cover the election
> night report styles the customer
wants to generate election night so we can
> make sure the database is
setup to accommodate their expectations? I'm just
> trying to
understand.
>
> LOGIC AND ACCURACY PRETEST METHODOLOGY: A reference
has been made to be
> sure that a regional upload client be sure to
include that functionality in
> the logic and accuracy pretest. Do we have
documentation on all the
> functionalities that should be included in our
logic and accuracy testing?
> Is there a checklist to use to prepare the
test and then to run the test?
> For the optical scan test deck, why are
we not sending out the algorithms
> being used to created the test deck?
If we at least send out "how the test
> was prepared" we could account for
NOT sending out a "Test Deck Report" to
> compare the L&A report
to.
>
> Thanks. Les
>
>
>
>
>
-----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bugtrack@gesn.com
[mailto:owner-bugtrack@gesn.com]On Behalf
> Of Jeff Hintz
> Sent:
Thursday, April 25, 2002 4:28 PM
> To: bugtrack@gesn.com
> Cc:
stevem; barry
> Subject: RE: Ballot Station v4.0.11
"anomaly"
>
>
> Hi Lesley,
>
> There was no Error
Message received for this problem that occurred on
> Election Night. The
transferring of the results to the GEMS host computer
> went through
without any error messages displaying a problem. The
problem,
> as Tab
wrote up in the e-mail that Frank sent out to Connie, is that
during
>
the direct transferring process, the information on the first Vote
Center
> that was transferred, was stored in the Cache memory of the AVTS
unit,
when
> the second, or subsequent, Vote Center was inserted and
then transferred,
> the AVTS unit was then transferring those new totals,
but with previously
> stored Race ID's as well as the new Race ID's, and
GEMS being confused,
> simply put the totals into the Races where it
thought the totals should
go.
>
> That is the best explanation
that I can give you. For a better and
clearer
> picture, you will have
to refer to Ken or Tab.
>
> Jeff
>
> -----Original
Message-----
> From: owner-bugtrack@gesn.com
[mailto:owner-bugtrack@gesn.com]On Behalf
> Of Lesley Thompson
>
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 2:31 PM
> To: BugTrack@gesn.com
> Cc:
stevem; barry
> Subject: Ballot Station v4.0.11
"anomaly"
>
>
> Jeff Hintz, Ken, Tab, or Robert
Chen...
>
> What were the ballot station error code messages that
were received during
> the central upload of the election day vote
centers? Johnson County still
> has questions and I am trying to finalize
the Report of Findings. Also,
can
> you explain to me what the
statement:
>
> "This problem only occurred when the second, or
subsequent, Vote Centers
> being uploaded during the same transmission
session, had the same Race as
a
> previously uploaded Vote
Center."
>
> And, why would the Leawood Mayor's race, which was not
on any of the vote
> center PC cards uploading centrally, end up with
errant votes? And, where
> did the 300 votes go that were not accounted
for in the initially released
> report?
>
> Can someone draw
me a picture?
>
> Thanks! Les
>
>
Lesley Thompson
Customer Service Project Manager
Diebold Election Systems, Inc.
800-433-8683
512-413-7618
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