1. (a) For any Election Management System's central accumulator to be certified for use in Texas elections, the central accumulator shall include a continuous feed printer dedicated to a real-time audit log. All significant election events and their date and time stamps shall be printed to the audit log.

2. (b) The definition of "significant election events" in subsection (a) of this rule includes but is not limited to:

   1. (1) error and/or warning messages and operator response to those messages;
   2. (2) number of ballots read for a given precinct;
   3. (3) completion of reading ballots for a given precinct;
   4. (4) identity of the input ports used for modem transfers from precincts;
   5. (5) users logging in and out from election system;
   6. (6) precincts being zeroed;
   7. (7) reports being generated;
   8. (8) diagnostics of any type being run; and
   9. (9) change to printer status.
3. (c) The continuous-feed printed audit log for an election shall be retained by the custodian of election records for the appropriate preservation period.
4. (d) The "Election Management System" in subsection (a) of this rule is defined as a system that consists of any or all of the following elements: functions and databases within a voting system that define, develop and maintain election databases, perform election definition and setup functions, format ballots, count votes, consolidate and report results, and maintain audit trails.
5. (e) The definition of "central accumulator" in subsection (a) of this rule is the part of an Election Management System that tabulates and/or consolidates the vote totals for multiple precincts/devices.

Source Note:The provisions of this §81.62 adopted to be effective January 31, 1999, 24 TexReg 553; amended to be effective March 25, 2003, 28 TexReg 2303; amended to be effective January 9, 2008, 33 TexReg 75.