Reply #28: Avante Vote Trakker - verified voting machine

[SmileMaker]

This awesome company that makes Avante Vote Trakker is in Rush Holt's district (NJ). I learned about them last year in the Trenton Times, so I called and actually got to speak with the owner, Cindy (forget last name). At the time, she could have been ready to roll out Election '04 - but, with all of the big companies that bullied her out of contracts, I doubt many voters were able to vote on these machines :(

I wish I knew about DU when I learned about these machines... At a verified voting forum that Rush Holt offered at Princeton University with Edward Felton (computer security expert) - I helped arrange for Avante to set up their machines. The experts seemed very impressed with the security features and flexibility of the Avante Vote Trakker systems. I think we should lobby for these machines.

http://www.aitechnology.com/votetrakker2/overview.html

AVANTE pioneered the use of a voter verifiable paper record (or “receipt”) as part of an independent verification and audit. This paper record is printed for voters to review before leaving the voting booth and is enclosed in a protective window.
The VOTE-TRAKKER™ paper record incorporates a random voting session identifier that is tied one-to-one to the electronic memory of the ballot images. The unique identifier is bound to the selections to form an encrypted check code as part of electronic verification. The printed style is also relationally encrypted.



The paper record is cut into individual records without time-stamps or other information that can be used to identify the voters in anyway.



The use of this voter verifiable paper record has resulted in over 96% of voters feeling confident in casting their ballots and the belief that their votes are counted correctly. This is a good 26% higher than those systems without voter verified paper records.