Electronic Ballot Reader

1
Electronic Ballot Reader

• Rosa Arias
• Chad Feller
• Walter Smith

2
Background

• What is touch screen voting?
• Sequoia Voting Systems
• Why the demand?
• Exchange of problems

3
Recount?

• What in the event of a recount?
• Recounts would be required under the following
  conditions
• Close election (i.e. Florida 2000)
• Software Failure
• Hardware Failure
• In case of an audit

4
Issues

• Recount what? Smudges on the touch screen?
• The need for a paper trail
• Verify the integrity of the machine
• Inspire confidence in the product
• Backup in the event of a system failure
• Federal law requiring a paper trail

5
Count all of that?

• Recounts consume manpower, lots of it
• Costly in terms of time
• Costly in terms of money
• That is where we come in

6
A Solution

• Solution An automated voting record reader
• The idea Provide a quick, automated means of
  verifying votes cast during an election.

7
Hardware

• Hardware is unknown
• Sequoias specs (or lack thereof)
• Use PC hardware
• Design an adaptable prototype

8
Platform Tools

• Linux
• C/C
• Apache
• MySQL
• GOCR / Ocrad
• Sane

9
System Overview
10
Enter Candidates
11
Enter Candidates
12
Scan / Tabulate Subsystem
13
Correct / Certify Results
14
Novelty of Solution

• The first of its kind

15
Challenges

• Learning new tools
• Foreign hardware (scanners)
• Foreign software (sane, gocr)

16
Future Work

• Merge projects with The Open Voting Consortium
  (openvotingconsortium.org)
• Become adopted nationally

17

• Questions?