Minnesota Administrative Rules

8220.0450 ACCEPTANCE DEMONSTRATION.

The vendor shall train a designee of the secretary of state in the preparation and operation of the system. The training must be at least as extensive as the training required for an election jurisdiction to be able to prepare and use the system at Minnesota elections.

The acceptance demonstration must be provided by the vendor and attended by designees of the secretary of state. The vendor is responsible for demonstrating that the system can meet all requirements of chapters 8220 and 8230 and Minnesota election law. In the acceptance demonstration, the vendor of the system must demonstrate the following concerning the system:

A.

its storage requirements;

B.

its speed of operation under conditions that simulate the scope and length of actual election ballots;

C.

full audit capability, with an audit trail, which includes a printout of overvotes and undervotes for each office and issue, and with the undervotes recorded directly from the ballots and not determined by subtraction of totals from ballots that were not overvoted;

D.

all features that can be programmed;

E.

all design specifications;

F.

maximum numbers of precincts, offices and issues, and candidates per office which can be handled;

G.

the production of reports which include vote totals and all statistics and other information required by the secretary of state;

H.

simulation of vote counting involving a configuration of the largest number of voters, precincts, offices, and candidates with which the system is expected to be used, which vote counting includes ballots showing overvotes, undervotes, and invalid votes as well as those with no overvotes or stray marks, in many different combinations, and demonstrates rotation sequences and the ability to count votes cast on the partisan, nonpartisan, and proposal sections of the ballot independently;

I.

accuracy of vote counting and procedures or process for testing accuracy;

J.

provisions for maintaining the security and integrity of elections; and

K.

provisions for write-in votes.

The vendor shall identify all hardware configurations with which software is intended to operate and shall provide an acceptance demonstration for every hardware and software configuration for which certification for use in Minnesota is requested. The secretary of state may provide additional ballots or test decks for the acceptance demonstration.

The acceptance demonstration and training of the secretary of state's designee may be accomplished either at the vendor's site or at the office of the secretary of state.

Statutory Authority:

MS s 206.57; 206.81; 206.82

History:

10 SR 1690; 23 SR 459; 25 SR 616

Published Electronically:

May 25, 2010