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(360) 902-4188 Fax (360) 664-4619
PO Box 40229 520 Union Ave NE Olympia, WA 98504
From: Murphy, Patty Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 12:26 PM
To: 'Ellen Theisen' Cc: John Gideon; Miller, Paul; Hamlin, Shane
Subject: RE: Pierce County RCV
Hello Ellen,
Regarding the Nov. 6 article (http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/529926.html ) concerning delays with election results reporting in Pierce County – they were not hardware related. The memory that Pierce County added to the computer system was not actual physical memory. And it did not relate to the RCV algorithm, but it related to a miscommunication from the vendor to the county regarding moving results to the reporting system.
This is the vendor's response -
Pierce encountered a delay on election night when they attempted to import their 400C results from WinETP (the tabulation server). WinEDS 4.0 (the reporting software) is designed to import 400C results in batch sizes on the order of 25,000 ballots or less. Pierce had consolidated all of their 400C results on WinETP into a single batch size of over 200,000 ballots. When they encountered the import constraint, we instructed them to increase their SQL Server memory configuration in order to successfully process the batch. This was a change made to the MS SQL Server configuration parameters only and had nothing to do with physical memory on the server computer.
This is another case of a vendor not communicating system usage limitations to a county. It was in no way Pierce County's fault, but the vendor's lack of proper communication regarding this upload protocol. However, the vendor responded quickly, and helped them solve the issue on election night. I'm sorry we didn't catch this during testing – in retrospect, if I had thought to test combining all of our volume testing into one batch, and then uploading it to Win EDS for reporting, it may have caught this. This was partly an oversight on my part regarding the test scenario. I don't think the national test laboratory would have caught this either because they would have uploaded results to Win EDS based on the vendor's recommendation of 25,000 ballot batches.
So yes, reporting of results was delayed, but it was not due to a limitation in processing power, but a software limitation that was not properly communicated to the county. It is now properly documented in county procedures, and I have made a note to alert the other Sequioa counties to this protocol when the software is nationally certified and available for their use. (And when I say 'limitation' – it is not necessarily a bad thing. Uploading smaller batches has other benefits – more selective and efficient back out of batch loads, and audit comparison advantages when comparing Win ETP reports with Win EDS uploads.)
Let me know if you have any other questions. Patty Murphy Voting Systems Support Office of the Secretary of State (360) 902-4188 Fax (360) 664-4619 PO Box 40229 520 Union Ave NE Olympia, WA 98504 pmurphy@secstate.wa.gov
From: Ellen Theisen
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:24 AM To: Murphy, Patty Cc: John Gideon Subject: Pierce County RCV Patty, I was very disappointed to read in a November 6 news article regarding the memory that had to be added to the Pierce County system in the middle of tabulation:
"McCarthy said that while her office had tested the software previously, it did not test it with anywhere near the volume of ballots processed Tuesday. She said Pierce County is one of the first to use the software, so the problem could not have been foreseen."
