CHAPTER 7
COUNTY MAINTENANCE FILE INPUT SPECIFICATIONS
[Prior to 3/21/90, see Voter Registration Commission[845], Ch 7]
821—7.1(47,48A) County commissioner responsible for timely maintenance input to state voter file. Every county commissioner, except those who have contracted with the state registrar for data processing services, shall ensure that voter registration file maintenance is provided to the state registrar in accordance with this chapter.
	7.1(1) Maintenance files shall be prepared and sent to the state registrar via the U.S. mail, common carrier or electronic link at least once every two weeks.
	7.1(2) Notwithstanding subrule 7.1(1), a maintenance file containing all activity from the most recent maintenance file through the close of registration for a regularly scheduled election shall be sent within five days of the close of registration for that election.
	7.1(3) Maintenance data shall contain transactions reflecting all voter registration activity received by the commissioner 48 or more hours before creation of the maintenance file and not included in a previous file.
	7.1(4) Notwithstanding subrule 7.1(3), information regarding voters’ participation in an election shall be reported within 35 days of the county canvass of the results of that election.
821—7.2(47,48A) Acceptable media. Maintenance data shall be sent on one of the following electronic media:
	7.2(1) One-half inch, nine-track tape, recorded at 1600 or 6250 BPI (bytes per inch), on an IBM standard reel, or on an IBM standard cartridge recorded at 38,000 BPI.
	a. 	Tapes may, at the commissioner’s option, be recorded in EBCDIC (Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange Code) or in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange).
	b. 	Each tape shall bear an external label disclosing the encoding characteristics (EBCDIC or ASCII), the density (1600 or 6250 BPI) and the block size of the file.
	c. 	Each tape shall bear an external label identifying the name of the county responsible for creation of the file, and the name and address of the organization to which the reel should be returned.
	7.2(2) Diskette, MS-DOS formatted, 5.25″ diameter, recorded in ASCII, at either 360 KB (kilobytes) or 720 KB.
	a. 	Each diskette shall bear an external label identifying the name of the county responsible for creation of the file.
	b. 	Each diskette shall bear an external label containing the name and address of the organization to which the diskette should be returned or shall be enclosed in a container upon which that information is displayed.
	7.2(3) Diskette, MS-DOS formatted, 3.5″ diameter, recorded in ASCII, at either 740 KB or 1.44 MB (megabytes).
	a. 	Each diskette shall bear an external label identifying the name of the county responsible for creation of the file.
	b. 	Each diskette shall bear an external label containing the name and address of the organization to which the diskette should be returned or shall be enclosed in a container upon which that information is displayed.
	7.2(4) Specifications and protocols for electronic transfer over telephone lines shall be agreed upon by the registrar and the commissioner responsible for sending the data. Specifications and protocols may vary from county to county, as determined by the capabilities and limitations of the transmitting and receiving equipment.
821—7.3(47,48A) Record format. Maintenance files shall be in the format specified in the document titled “State of Iowa Record Format—Voter Registration—County Input Transactions” available from the state registrar of voters.
These rules are intended to implement Iowa Code sections 47.4 and 48A.37.
[Filed 11/22/77, Notice 10/5/77—published 12/14/77, effective 1/18/78]
[Filed 5/25/78, Notice 4/5/78—published 6/14/78, effective 7/19/78]
[Filed 9/14/78, Notice 8/9/78—published 10/4/78, effective 11/8/78]
[Filed 4/11/79, Notice 3/7/79—published 5/2/79, effective 6/6/79]
[Filed 12/4/81, Notice 10/14/81—published 12/23/81, effective 1/27/82]
[Filed 8/30/89, Notice 4/5/89—published 9/20/89, effective 10/25/89]
[Filed 3/1/90, Notice 9/6/89—published 3/21/90, effective 4/25/90]
[Filed 11/4/94, Notice 9/28/94—published 11/23/94, effective 1/5/95]