Essex County Task Force on E-VOting visits the Avante factory

[FogerRox]

In Princeton NJ. Avante has introduced a ground up new DRE, with a full face, suitable for voters that are used to the display of a lever machine. The Touch screen is a full 30 inches and requires no scrolling or next page inputs. Politicians will like the fact that the "LINE" is contigious. Included in the aprox. $7200 purchase price is a VVPR Printer. Compared to the Sequoia Advantage, with out a printer, for $8000.

2 membersof the Task Force, a retired Engineer and a Phd. visited the Avante Factory on Tuesday.

I have copied some comments:

The touch screen has a very good, clear, and
unclattered layout and appeared to work flawlessly.
It's just like day and night in comparison to
Sequoia's full face. We were told that the screen is
guarranteed for 3 million button presses, which
amounts to approximately 1,500 elections, or 750
years, give or take 50 years. Warrantee for the
machine as a whole is nowhere near that. He didn't
want to be pinned down, but is sounded it would be for
2 years, or more for extra cost.

The printer appeared to be solidly built, with very
small likelihood of jamming, and if it were to occur,
it would be quite easy to clear a jam and get it
working again. One question that wasn't asked is
whether a voting record can be re-printed if the
original was lost in a jam.

The printer is a thermal type, but it's nothing like
the cheap paper roll contraptions made by Sequoia and
the other two major vendors, Diebold and ES&S. The
paper is quite thick, and from what we could see and
were told, it produces printouts that are similar in
quality to laser or injet printouts, and will last for
years with no degradation. Unlike laser or inkjet
printers, it will never run out of a toner.

Printout itself is OK as far as ease of reading, but
it is a bit crammed and just could be better.

Very important, there is no proprietary memory
cartriges, just a standard CD. He said there is no
cellular or any other communication devices that could
be used, remotely or from the inside, to get inside
the machine. Also, ballots will be created by an
election official, not by a company person. Once shown
how to do it, he claimed, there would be no reason
election workers could not do everything themselves to
prepare for and run elections.

Software is not an open source. We were told however
that the company would have no objections to anyone
examining the software, or anything inside the
machines, any time by anyone, as long as the BOE
agrees to sign a non-disclosure agreement not to
release the source code.

Overall, it looked quite good, and certainly good
enough to be considered further. The fact that it is a
new machine designed from scratch using current
technology as well as current thinking about what a
voting machine should and should not do is a major
plus. Its only major negative is an absence of any
track record of use in real elections, which obviously
would be very important to Mr. Casciano. It needs to
be pointed out however that the same can be said of
Sequoia Advantage after it becomes retrofitted with a
printer, because adding a printer, for all practical
purposes, makes it a new and untested model. I'm not
sure though whether Mr. Casciano will see it this way.
However, Warren county people apparently are willing
to take this chance with Avante.

edit --- Mr Casciano is the Essex County Supervisor of Elections.

[SmileMaker]

1. Hooray!!! Avante is an excellent company!

And... isn't it coincidental that they are in the building right next to Rush Holt's office? If he or Avante were corrupt, they probably would have worked out a sweetheart deal a long time ago.

I hope Essex buys them. The owners assured me that the machines would create jobs for Americans too.

[jsamuel]

2. software opensource? nt

[FogerRox]

3. paragraph 6-- the answer is no-- but they invite auditing

[jsamuel]

4. i see...

hmmm... need to meditate on this one :P

[FogerRox]

5. My thought is they-- Avante would sure like to see a large county in their

home state using Avante equipment (maybe Essex county NJ?), it would be a feather in their cap for sure---
A smaller company -- that is hungery - it would be in their best interest to provide top class service.

And plus-- do you think Deibold or Sequoia or ES&S would invite 2 election reform activists into their office and factory?

I dont trust DREs, I dont trust those who advocate their use---but

If your local election official is used to the lever machine--they tend to like full face machines-- like the Avante Trakker.
Areas that have used punch cards tend to go for the small face DRE.

SOOOOo it may be that the 2 least innocious DREs are the
1)Accupoll DRE with printer, linux based, red hat, and encrypted modem transmision from the tabulator.
2) Avante DRE, full face,printer, and Avante claims to allow auditing of source code.

[emcguffie]

6. But wouldn't they limit who could audit?

For instance, would they let election "activists" look at the software, or would it have to be a consultant or someone hired by an elections office?

That could be worrisome.

[FogerRox]

7. DO you think Sequoia or Diebold would extend an invitation to

a group of acitivists to: COme on down !!!! Just load up the minivan with folks-- is tuesday good for you ? Ok tuesday it is---

Thats certainly a better start.

Though, your point on who gets to take a "sneak & peek" is salient.

Maybe at least on the surface, Avante seems to have a different attitude.