[ScanIndiana] Loan MECA radios and MDTs for Election Day help ?!

[Terry & Nancy Hoover]

I think both your ideas are really out in left field, not to mention
histerical, I think the election board in Marion County needs to look at
leasing a couple of Nextels for each precinct or re-imburse those inspectors
for cell phone air time charges.

Personaly I would have made it clear (prior arrangements) and logged all
those calls and forwarded that info to Ms Sadler on a claim to the County
for payment of all verified phone call/ air time.

I'm fairly sure that the director of MECA will find this humorous as well.

Good Luck (still laughing)
Terry Hoover

-----Original Message-----
From: scanindiana-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:scanindiana-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Daniel Heaton
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 10:18 AM
To: scanindiana at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [ScanIndiana] Loan MECA radios and MDTs for Election Day help
?!


Loan MECA radios and MDTs for Election Day help ?!

Let me bounce a communications idea off on you.

I was a precinct inspector at last Tuesday’s election in Marion County.

We spent a lot of time on our PERSONAL cell phones to call the Inspector
Hotline for voters who legitimately thought they were registered in my
precinct and were not in the poll book, and when the tabulator jammed, or
would not work for the first 20 minutes, etc.  I have a 25 minute plan on my
cell phone.... so far no offer from the county to reimburse me... it will
eat up my $110 pay which worked out to be $5.25 per hour.

The communications from the County Board to the precincts on Election Day is
PONY EXPRESS.  Well ok I assume they came in there personal cars... but no
phone calls, faxes, or other 20th or 21st century methods were used.  Two
important memos were issued.  Six people in my precinct were mistakenly
thought to be deceased and were now believed to be alive.  One made my heart
sink, it said to remove half the information in the instruction manual
!!.... was half of what we were doing for the first half of the day WRONG ?.
  Luckily my book never had the old bad sections in it !!

MY IDEA:   Ask OFF DUTY police officers to loan the election board their
MECA radios and MDTs (aka Mobile Data Terminals, aka Laptop Computers) for
election day use in the polls.  The MDTs would have to be set up with a
login that would allow us to access the county voter records database  on a
READ ONLY basis, and would block access to criminal files, etc.  We would
have to be set to a low priority as to not delay CAD dispatch traffic.  I
think they have the capacity, MECA trunking went down during the tornados,
but I think the MDTs continued to work.

MY IDEA PART 2: MECA radios.  OK I know that there are only approx 26
channels on MECA 1, and the 900+ precincts would have to be told NOT to
transmit unless there is a fire, or they need police with sirens sounding.
Broadcasts from the county to the precincts would be the primary use, on a
new talkgroup.  Maybe MECA 2 could be used in addition to or instead of MECA
1.  The PTT radio IDs could be an issue if someone accidentally pushed the
emergency status button.  They may need to list which officer’s radios are
in use at which precincts.

We may not be able to get 900+ radios or MDTs, but several locations have 2
or 3 precincts in the same building and could share, and smaller precincts
could get one OR the other.

I plan to put this idea in front of Ms. Sadler, after she certifies this
election and gets some sleep.  Overall she does an outstanding job, it takes
some guts to put out those two embarrassing memos on election day... but she
wants to get it right  !!

What do you think?

VOTE !!   VOLUNTEER and the POLLS... It was a valuable experience !!

Dan


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