RE: Ballot Information Data Standards

["Paul Spencer" <paul.spencer@boynings.co.uk>]

Carl,

Your best bet for viewing XSD files is to download an evaluation copy of one
of the XML tools such as XML Spy (Altova), Turbo XML (Tibco) or Stylus
Studio (Sonic Software). The schemas were developed in XML Spy.
Alternatively, IE gives a simple display (you may have to rename the file to
.xml).

I have been told that the document repository is suffering from a redesign
of the web site. It should be back any time now.

As I mentioned before, as a Technical Committee, we are very interested in
detail comments on how well EML fits specific needs, so when you get the
full documents, please let us know what you think and anything you would
like added (and why). This will then be taken into account at the next
revision.

Regards

Paul Spencer


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Hage [mailto:carl@chage.com]
> Sent: 26 April 2003 21:34
> To: clift@publicus.net; election-services@lists.oasis-open.org;
> farah.ahmed@e-envoy.gsi.gov.uk;
> Anwar.Choudhury@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov;
> john.borras@e-envoy.gsi.gov.uk; Paul Spencer
> Cc: davidgstein@yahoo.com; dalger156@earthlink.net;
> krooney@capitoladvantage.com; alexander.t.leventhal@accenture.com;
> award@essvote.com; a.macintosh@napier.ac.uk; bruce.elton@oracle.com;
> paquettec@fvap.ncr.gov; caoun@election.com; cherrygal.com@verizon.net;
> greg.sloane@ssc.govt.nz; gregg@election.com;
> hans.von.spakovsky@usdoj.gov; jeep@free-project.org;
> jo-ann.zakielarz@unisys.com; johnh@votehere.net; ross@secstan.com;
> john.w.stevens@bt.com; jglidden@election.com; karl.best@oasis-open.org;
> ksankar@cisco.com; Nazir.Mulla@oracle.com; oliverb@microsoft.com;
> pascal.souhard@atica.pm.gouv.fr; paul_kirk@hp.com;
> Peter.Lyster@tnsi.com; rjamin@election.com; robin@isogen.com;
> svalentine@iec.state.in.us; temconsulting@aol.com;
> stephen.farrell@baltimore.ie; steven.hagan@unisys.com; tbovee@ap.org;
> tim.pickering@aec.gov.au; kimalex@calvoter.org; keenan@publius.org
> Subject: RE: Ballot Information Data Standards
>
>
> Paul,
>
> Thanks for the reply about the OASIS-EML.
>
> I do the technical work behind smartvoter.org, a voter information site
> that provides users with an exact ballot lookup (all contests and
> candidates) and where we have data, polling locations.
>
> To accomplish this, we interface with each of 25 or so counties to obtain
> election data and results. In some cases, individual cities manage
> elections (e.g. in Los Angeles County), so we need to gather information
> from a large number of cities as well.  I've written a lot of software to
> convert the various election systems databases as well as tools to
> convert hand-entered data from word processor and spreadsheet files.
>
> Getting access to election definitions is the most difficult problem for
> us. Election data in electronic form is often not available until late in
> the election cycle, and in many cases is available only in paper format.
> It is common to enter information into computers, print it out, type it
> back in, print if out, etc. discarding the computerized content in the
> process.
>
> One of the nasty problems is that data entered into computers is often
> abbreviated and misspelled, making it unsuitable for typeset quality and
> making it difficult for software to process.
>
> In my opinion, standards for interchanging actual ballots is less
> important than information about the election and results (ballot
> exchange is usually just between equipment from one vendor, while
> election definitions need to cross many organizations and applications).
> The exchange process is not significant in comparison to just having data
> available.
>
> We have a set of laws relating to public notice and elections, but they
> are all paper based. Many filings are required, but one must take a daily
> trip to each county clerk and possibly each city clerk to ask to inspect
> a pile of paper to see if there is anything new. I believe it's time to
> revise these laws to require electronic filing with full public access in
> a computer and human readable form.
>
> I have been interested in standards for representing election information
> for some time now, and have a lot of experience in working with various
> election data systems (in the US). I would like the opportunity to
> comment on the EML specificatoins.
>
> I could not find a document repository, but found a pdf file and xsd
> files in the elist archives. Is there a tool to convert xsd into html so
> it can be easily read?
>
> It looks like EML covers much of what I deal with, though I see some
> missing data dealing with political district definitions. The charter of
> your TC matches much of what I do.
>
> Note that you might also consider expanding the charter to cover
> definitions of elected officials and elected offices. There wouldn't need
> to be much more added. An elected officials database provides names of
> incumbents and term limits, plus term information on when the elections
> are to be held.
>
> [See note below...]
>
> From:           	"Paul Spencer" <paul.spencer@boynings.co.uk>
> Subject:        	RE: Ballot Information Data Standards
> Date sent:      	Wed, 23 Apr 2003 23:10:49 +0100
> ...
> > I am not sure what you are looking for in terms of mapping
> voting addresses
> > to districts. EML only defines interface messages, rather than services
> > themselves. There are messages for communicating between databases that
> > could probably be used for this.
>
> The issue is not the actual mapping-- it's having a data standard that
> can correctly define political districts, polling districts (called
> precincts here), geography and street addresses, and the relationship
> between them all. This information is needed to derive ballot types (a
> unique combination of contests on a ballot), assign voters to polling
> locations, and retrieve a ballot from a street address. The same is
> required to find who ones elected representatives are.
>
> There is a related GIS issue in defining political districts and maps.
>
> Though Florida chad made the news, I have found errors in 100% of county
> data I have processed. Election systems designed to work in isolation
> never have an opportinuty to cross-check for accuracy, and typically
> don't even have a self-consistency check.
>
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Steven Clift [mailto:clift@publicus.net]
> > > Sent: 23 April 2003 20:56
> > > Subject: Ballot Information Data Standards
> ...
> > > Are standards emerging from your emerging standards process covering
> > > the:
> > >
> > > 1. Presentation/format of ballot information data
> > > 2. Polling place location, hours, instructions data
> > > 3. Mapping of voter addresses to districts
> > >
> > > If we can leverage the thoughtful work of existing standards efforts,
> > > our goal would be to encourage state and local election offices to
> > > encourage the use such standards to improve the dissemination and
> > > reuse of this fundamentally important election information in voter
> > > education efforts.
> > >
> > > Sincerely,
> > > Steven Clift
> > > clift@publicus.net
> > > Board Chair, E-Democracy (producer of MyBallot.net)
> > > http://www.e-democracy.us
> > > http://www.e-democracy.org
> > > ^               ^               ^                ^
> > > Steven L. Clift    -    W: http://www.publicus.net
> > > Minneapolis    -   -   -     E: clift@publicus.net
> > > Minnesota  -   -   -   -   -    T: +1.612.822.8667
> > > USA    -   -   -   -   -   -   -     ICQ: 13789183
> > >
> > >
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Carl Hage                                              C. Hage Associates
> <mailto:carl@chage.com> Voice/Fax: 1-408-244-8410      1180 Reed Ave #51
> <http://www.chage.com/chage/>                          Sunnyvale, CA
> 94086
>
>