AccuPoll Receives FEC Certification - Thoughts?

I see this as a good thing. Any comments?


AccuPoll Receives 2002 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards Certification
Wednesday May 11, 8:30 am ET
First VVPAT Voting System to Meet Stringent 2002 Standards


TUSTIN, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2005--AccuPoll Inc. (OTCBB:ACUP - News), a developer of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems, today announced receipt of certification under the 2002 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards. As a result, AccuPoll becomes the first vendor of an end-to-end voting system featuring a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) to be certified under the more stringent 2002 standards.
Assignment of a federal qualification number now allows AccuPoll to pursue certification in states that require voting system certification under the 2002 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards such as Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas. AccuPoll anticipates that additional states will upgrade their certification standards to the 2002 requirements.

"This is a major accomplishment for the company," said Frank Wiebe, president of AccuPoll. "It sets us apart from the competition not only in that our system conforms to the highest standards, but also in that it gives AccuPoll the ability to provide election officials with a true voter verified paper audit trail."

The newly certified AccuPoll voting system, previously code-named Balboa, will now be known as Version 2.5. Version 2.5 includes new features such as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), electronic VVPAT audio review, early voting support, encrypted election results as well as additional enhanced security features. AccuPoll thus becomes one of the most feature-rich and transparent election systems available to election officials across the country.

Receipt of 2002 federal certification is important because, as of Jan. 1, 2005, any changes made to a voting system requires that the entire system be tested and qualified under the 2002 FEC Voting System Standards.

About AccuPoll Holding Corp.

With headquarters in Tustin, AccuPoll (OTCBB:ACUP - News) is the developer of a federally qualified electronic voting system featuring an intuitive touch screen input and a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) that can be confirmed by the voter at the time the ballot is cast, creating a permanent paper audit trail for recount and audit purposes.

For additional information, visit www.accupoll.com.

There's got to be one in the woodpile someplace.

Notice the IRV capabilities. Not many Repugs want that....

Looks to be a step in the correct direction.

It'd be nice if TPTB would stop scrabbling around
and buy these machines.

www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/17news05.htm Accupoll is the only company out there that meets the standards demanded by www.velvetrevolution.us in their divestiture campaign. Check out the Iconoclast article from last month. This is a dream come true and everyone on DU should be supporting them. They have paper ballots, open sourcecode, no ties to Repugs and the list goes on and on.

Money for a great cause, and I firmly believe that with support, good be a very good return.

We can't let the Repugs control this side any more. When a good intentioned company like this comes along with a product that could benefit a larger cause, we need to support them. How do you think the repugs got so powerful? The difference here, however, is that we're supporting a democratice processs, not an imperialistic one.

I looked around the AccuPoll site and went through the demo. But what I didn't see was the sequence of events for counting the votes. I am interested in learning more about AccuPoll, for sure, but I am holding them up for comparison against Open Voting Consortium. OVC has an awesome .pdf that goes step by step from the precinct opening the polls to the votes being counted and archived with three permanent ways to check for accuracy. What I can find about AccuPoll looks promising but there's more I need to see to get on board. Can anyone provide a link that explains the AccuPoll vote counting and archiving?

I have actually seen the AccuPoll System in use at an election -- this was at the Primary Endorsement Vote conducted in February 2005 by the Democratic Party of Allegheny County PA (very large county containing City of Pittsburgh). The Endorsement Vote required 22 different ballot splits and there were 2600 eligible voters.

Since the election was in progress when I observed, I did not see the actual sign-in, sign-out process, however it was explained to me.

There is a random code which links each paper ballot to its electronic ballot. It was explained to me this could be used (for example) to do a void when a voter's paper ballot did not reflect his or her true choices.

The paper ballot has the random code AND a bar code which can be scanned (the barcode can be used for data OR as an audio track which will read the visually impaired voter's choices aloud over a headphone system.) And of course the choices printed in writing.

The data has multiple-back up to several forms including hard disk. There is precinct-level counting, with the ability to generate a printed return sheet to post at the poll. All results are carried to the County or State on encrypted CD. There is NO networking of any kind beyond the polling room (only from voting terminal to pollworker's station.)

I have some AccuPoll company sales material with some Specs, etc, perhaps I can look up more later?

He said Frank Carlucci was somewhere up the chain.

Meanwhile, it's supposed to be OpenSoftware. We should ask Andy about it.

Google them and see what comes up... I just did and confirmed.

Also here is a thread from mid-April about this subject...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=359399

The AccuPoll System runs on Red Hat Linux which IS open software. The stuff running (ballot styles, etc) on top of the Linux is proprietary, but AccuPoll reps have stated to me that they are not adverse to sometime having their stuff examined by an independent group (maybe like verified voting?) provided their copyright / patent rights are kept secure.

I think I goofed that one before. Darn.

Thanks for straightening that out, DD.

Wilms

http://guvwurld.blogspot.com/2005/05/accupoll-has-vvpat-and-federal.html

AccuPoll is an election machine manufacturer that has been getting largely favorable attention in the election reform community. AccuPoll only recently made my radar after the circulation of the new Voter Confidence Resolution attracted a reply from Brett of Velvet Revolution (and then again in this thread). Finally making time for my over-due diligence, some of the more interesting results of my search are below.

AccuPoll made big news this past Wednesday:

TUSTIN, Calif. May 11, 2005. -- AccuPoll, Inc. (OCTBB: ACUP), a developer of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems, today announced receipt of certification under the 2002 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards. As a result, AccuPoll becomes the first vendor of an end-to-end voting system featuring a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) to be certified under the more stringent 2002 standards.

...

The newly certified AccuPoll voting system, previously code-named Balboa, will now be known as Version 2.5. Version 2.5 includes new features such as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), electronic VVPAT audio review, early voting support, encrypted election results as well as additional enhanced security features. AccuPoll thus becomes one of the most feature-rich and transparent election systems available to election officials across the country.

This article from last July announces AccuPoll's certification in West Virginia.

"With the latest addition of West Virginia to our list of state certifications, we are now able to sell our equipment to roughly one third of the states across the country," said Dennis Vadura, CEO of AccuPoll.

Last month AccuPoll was certified by the state of Louisiana. Notice how this piece, like the one directly above, does not explicitly say how many states have approved AccuPoll:

TUSTIN, Calif. — AccuPoll Inc., a developer of Direct Recording Electronic voting systems, announced in a news release the receipt of state certification for its voting system in the state of Louisiana. The designation marks yet another state where AccuPoll's electronic voting system featuring a voter-verified paper audit trail is now available.

Given what an inside look we've recently been able to get at Open Voting Consortium's open source electronic voting system, I thought for sure I could get good details on how AccuPoll counts votes. What I've seen talks about printing a paper ballot for the voter to review before dropping the ballot in a box. The electronic record can later be compared with the paper record but I see no explanation of how the paper is counted. Such info may be available but I didn't find it.

Instead I found this page at VotingIndustry.com devoted entirely to AccuPoll. It contains links to four cartoonish documents purporting to be serious, none of which satisfies my curiosity. I was similarly stymied by this PowerPoint presentation created for a voting technology conference at M.I.T. on October 1, 2004. And the bulk of the AccuPoll website itself revolves around the Corporate Profile, Management Team and Investor Relations. Run Rudolph Run.

This point has been included in some form in every version of the Voter Confidence Resolution over the past 13 months: the results yielded by corporate owned election machines can directly help or hurt the manufacturer's ability to provide stockholders with a return on investment, thus demonstrating an inherent conflict of interest in allowing corporate ownership of election machines. What would be better is keeping all election methods (not necessarily machines!) owned and operated entirely in the public domain.

Finally, I am confused about AccuPoll's position on open source code. This page and this .pdf, both found on AccuPoll's site, both say open source is in use. On January 13, 2003, seemingly several lifetimes ago, Insight Magazine published "High Tech Voting Raises Questions":

{AccuPoll CEO Dennis} Vadura supports keeping the codes proprietary. From a business standpoint, he explains, typically the goal of the software company is to keep the code it developed a trade secret. "I don't want my competitor to see it because I might have certain abilities or techniques that we implemented in our code that give us a competitive advantage." But he adds, "You have to balance that {business need} with {the question}, 'How can people trust it?'"

Vadura says he understands calls for making the software freely available to the public. But even a publicly owned firm such as AccuPoll would be reluctant openly to relinquish its code, because of profit responsibilities to its stockholders.

When I said there was an inherent conflict of interest for corporations to make elections machines, I meant it in the legal prima facie sense that this is self-evident and obvious at first appearance. Vadura's quote may be over two years old but I don't think the statute of limitations can really run out on putting your foot in your mouth. That can come back around to kick you in the ass anytime.

AccuPoll cannot be certified in NC because our elections chief is a member of the Election Center and won't allow it.

Good parts about AccuPoll -

*full size truly recountable paper ballot.
*probably the best disabled accessibility features available
(if you can blow air, you can vote)
*made in Lexington NC, at least part of it, if not all
*will allow trusted parties to review source code
(It's only about 10 million lines, enjoy)

Drawbacks -

Weight 30 pounds (NC uses this as excuse, says not curbside accessible)

Cost: You need more DREs per voters than optical scan
Lifespan of this machine: about 5 years according to vendor here:

Background info, ownership and lawsuits r/e AccuPoll here:

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2005/04/05/0001185185-05-000135/Section18.asp