The best workflow for a given jurisdiction will vary, however this outline is a good starting point.
In many cases the default template can be used without modification. But to make sure, ask yourself the following questions:
- Does any of the boilerplate text of the ballot need to be modified for this election?
- Does any of the functionality of the RBM need to be modified for this election?
If so, perform one or more of the following tasks
- Modify Text
- Package PDF
- Sign PDF (optional, but strongly recommended)
Please contact Hilton Roscoe if you need assistance modifying a template.
Ballot data is represented using Election Markup Language's (EML) 410 schema, which represents data for one or more ballots in a given election. Ballot data will likely be exported out of an existing Election Management System (EMS). Sample ballot data is available under the xml/ directory.
A full treatment of ballot data is available here.
Generation of ballots is currently a manual process, but is conceptually simple. It consists of embedding the RBM dataset for a particular ballot style into the packaged PDF. This can be achieved with the use of commercial tools such as Adobe Acrobat.
Optional tasks:
Note that there isn't a ballot layout step. This is because ballots are not laid out, but generated. Generation can be customized by taking advantage of extensions to the EML 410 format.
TODO: Add Proofing Instructions