Ballot counting - bridging between EML 410 and EML 230

Team,

 

I'm working on an anonymous counting mechanism for use with paper
scanned ballots particularly - but the same could also apply to
DRE votes too.

 

When the ballot comes off the scanner - the scanner is just plucking
fields and columns and X's - so it has no idea of candidates / ballots
et al.

 

That is a good thing.

 

So it merely dumps data as <fieldID="XXX" value="1"/> where XXX
is the sequential # of the field it scanned.

 

Now I want to align fieldID=023 with candidate 007 - etc, but I want
to do this anonymously - like putting beans in tins - so the counting
mechanism has no idea which tin is what.

 

Unfortunately EML 230 exposes the candidate affliation, description,
etc.

 

What I need is a bridging EML that maps between the actual ballot
layout - EML 410 and the list of voting candidates / options -
anonymously - (that will create EML 440's then from this and the
scanner output).

 

I can of course go ahead and create some XML for this purpose -
fieldID = candidateID and that is all that is in that EML - excepting
header information on the event etc for matching purposes.

 

I'm just wondering if I'm missing something that exists
already?  

 

If not - should we add this to EML 5.0 requirements?

 

The goal is to create a general purpose counting system that can
total EML ballots given the EML control XML's - EML 110 - and this
other EML XML - and then this runs thru and does all the totals by
anonymous ID value.

 

A final step then separately and independently uses the final counts,
and the EML 230 to figure out who got what votes.

 

Thanks, DW