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APPENDIX H - SURE ENVIRONMENTSURE SystemsAs referenced throughout the document, “SURE Systems” includes the following applications: SURE Portal, Election and Campaign Finance System, Campaign Finance Online System, Election Night Returns, Public Portal (PA Voter Services), Dynamic Import Process Interface, Kiosk Portal, Voter Registration, PennDOT and DOS IDs application, verification, and related processes, Lobby Disclosure Reporting and the SURE Phone System (“SURE Systems”). Below is a brief explanation of what each of these systems do and the technology that allows them to operate. SURE (SURE SYSTEMS) SystemThe SURE SYSTEMS system is the voter registration system for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This system grants election users in all 67 counties the ability to enter and process voter registration applications. The system is written in Microsoft on Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 as a client server application. The application resides on multiple Windows Server 2012 servers with a Citrix Xen App rendering layer. An active/passive SQL?Server?2012 cluster houses databases that drive the application’s data store. A second active/passive SQL?Server?2012 cluster houses SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) where the application generates various election-required reports. A third active/passive SQL?Server?2012 cluster houses services that provide replication distribution to the SSRS cluster as well as to a SQL?Server?2012 cluster located in the Department’s server farm. Each county office leverages Wyse Z90D7 thin client as the access point to the SURE SYSTEMS system. These devices are running a locked down version of Windows 7. The user utilizes the Citrix ICA client to connect to the SURE application servers by way of the Commonwealth to County Network (CCN). Connections to most of the counties are by way of T1 circuits. Each county has at least one Wyse Z90D7 thin client with a USB connected DVD burner. This allows the county to burn DVDs of exported report data. Counties also have USB connected Strobe 400 scanners which are used to take images of voter registration applications. Bar code readers are also connected to the Wyse Z90D7 thin client to allow users to scan various correspondences.Each county election office contains one or more Kyocera 3920 DN/9350 DN printers. Some counties also have other county owned printers attached to the SURE environment for printing of reports, ID cards, and poll books. SURE Data WarehouseThe SURE Data Warehouse is located on one of the previously mentioned SQL?Server?2012 clusters. SQL Server Analytical Services (SSAS) is leveraged to build various cubes of data, which will be used by the Department. Some SURE reports may also leverage this data.SURE PortalsThe SURE Portals are made up of a client/server and a web application. The client server application, also known as the Entity Portal, resides in county offices as well as in offices within the Department. The Entity Portal allows users to enter into and query the voter registry, administer information that is rendered on the web application, record and report on provisional ballots, submit voter registration statistics, and generate various statistical reports.The entity portal is built with Visual Studio 2005 as a Microsoft Click Once application. Smart Client Software Factory and the Commonwealth’s BSCoE enterprise blocks are leveraged as the underlying architecture. C# is also found in some remote areas of the code. The client communicates over the CCN to common web services that are found as the logic layer between the client/server part of the application, the public web application, and the SQL Server 2005 database. The web services and databases are found in the Department’s server farm.The public web portal provides constituents with various pieces of information. Voters may query the Polling Place Locator to find directions and the location of their polling place. An election calendar, frequently asked questions, and news items are available for both county specific and state specific areas. The status of a provisional ballot can be found on this site.The public web portal is built as a application. The front facing portion of the application resides in the Commonwealth’s Data Power House. Calls from the public site are routed to the common web services at the Department.HAVA InterfaceVarious requirements are placed on the processing of voter registration applications. One of those requirements is verification of an applicant’s driver’s license number (DL), photo ID number, or last four digits of their social security number (SSN) for new registrants. The HAVA Interface is the mechanism that accomplishes this process. Voter registration transactions that are required to be verified are placed into a SQL?Server?2005 database where a Biztalk 2006 application utilizes the SQL Adapter to pick up these transactions. The Biztalk application processes these transactions and passes them on to the MQ Series Adapter where the Department’s MQSeries server at the Enterprise Data Center sends them to PennDOT. PennDOT’s MQSeries system then either processes the DL transactions or sends them on to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) for SSN verification. Validation responses are sent back through the interface and logged back into SURE where the user posts the transactions appropriately. This system is also used to meet Voter ID requirements for absentee ballots.SURE Phone System The Department is required to provide voters with the status of Provisional Ballots that were cast in an election. The SURE Entity Portal is the mechanism where most county election offices data enter the status. The SURE Public Portal allows voters to query and visualize the status of their vote. The SURE Phone System allows voters to query and hear the status of their vote. The Department utilizes a application built using Visual Studio 2003 with VB SALT controls. Microsoft Speech Server 2004 located in the Enterprise Data Center delivers the provisional ballot status by querying a SQL?Server?2012 database for the appropriate transaction. Lobby Disclosure Reporting SystemThe Department is required to provide a system in which lobbyists are required to register and provide details of the organizations for which they are working. The system is web based and provides interfaces for lobbyists to enter quarterly reports and for the public to search the database. Records are entered into a web application hosted in IIS 7 and stored in a SQL Server 2012 database. The Lobbyist Disclosure Reporting System was developed using Visual Studio 2013 and is hosted in the Commonwealth’s Data Powerhouse.Elections and Campaign Finance SystemThe Elections and Campaign Finance System provides the Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation a system to manage campaign finance filings and election results. This system has an interface for the counties that utilize it to enter elections results and to certify elections. This system is hosted in the Data Powerhouse, leveraging a SQL Server 2012 cluster.Campaign Finance Online SystemCampaign Finance System provides for online filing and searching of campaign contributions. Candidates are able to upload there filings as a text file, use an online from to create their filing or submit them to the Bureau of Commissions, Elections, and Legislation to have them uploaded into the system. This system is hosted in the Data Powerhouse, leveraging a SQL Server 2012 cluster.PennDOT and DOS Voter ID SystemsThe Department of State (DOS) works with the Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to provide identification for voters. The various parts of this system include an interface for PennDOT staff to voter registration verification, the transfer of DOS VoterID applications to DOS SharePoint, and the automated comparison of applicant information to the Voter Registration system. Petition SystemThrough the Petition system automates the process of candidates filing petitions to run for office. Petitions are received by the BCEL staff and scanned into a SQL 2012 database. The system utilizes OCR technology to identify the names on the petitions and then compares those to a list of registered voters. The signatures are then tallied to meet the various requirements for the appropriate office. The technologies utilized for this system include ImagXpress OCR software, SQL Server 2012, IIS 7 and it was developed in Visual Studio 2012. Public Portal (PA Voter Services)The PA Voter Services Public Portal includes the election night returns public interface, voter registration status lookup, a polling place locator, and the provisional ballot search. This serves as the Dynamic Import Process Interface.Dynamic Import Process InterfaceThe Dynamic Import Process Interface is used by County Bureaus of Election to bulk process voter registration forms during high volume periods. DOH InterfaceThe Department of Health interface is utilized by the SURE systems to retrieve a list of death certificates that have been issued to purge those names from the active voter list. This process utilizes FTP to transport the data between the two departments’ systems. PennDOT InterfaceThe Department of State interfaces with the Department of Transportation to receive voter registrations via the MotorVoter process. This process utilizes FTP to transport the data between the two departments’ systems. Kiosk PortalThe Kiosk Portal is a limited access interface to the SURE system which counties can use to have citizens register electronically in the Bureau of Elections offices. Election Night Returns systemThe Election Night Returns system provides the counties with a means to upload their returns for state-wide races to the Department of State. The Department of State then compiles that data and presents the state-wide and county level results on the PA Voter Services Public Portal. This application is built using the .Net Framework and is hosted on IIS 7 and utilizes an MS SQL 2012 database. ................
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