Yesterday evening, Sequoia Voting Systems released the first portion of
source code for the company’s latest product offering – the
Frontier Election SystemTM – on the company’s website at www.sequoiavote.com.
This initial release contains source code for generating ballot PDFs
within the election management system as well as the internal
dependencies required for this functionality.
“This release of Frontier’s source code is the first step on a long road
toward increasing the transparency, auditability, and security of voting
systems and will be continually updated with additional modules of the
Frontier Election System until 100% of the system’s software is publicly
released,” said Eric Coomer, PhD, Vice President of Research and Product
Development for Sequoia Voting Systems.
All source code, including the software and firmware for the precinct
and central count tabulators, will be posted on the company’s website
for public review prior to Sequoia submitting the Frontier Election
System into the federal voting system certification program, currently
scheduled for mid-2010.
Over the coming months, Sequoia will also be launching new discussion
boards where members of all segments of the election community will be
invited to post comments and give feedback regarding Sequoia’s Frontier
source code and related products. Until these discussion boards are
launched, please send any and all comments regarding this code release
to the company via email to: [email protected].
“Sequoia is committed to fostering dialogue and continuing our history
of bringing innovative solutions to the voting systems marketplace,”
said Dr. Coomer. “My team and I look forward to this dialogue and to
constructive input from members of the election community.”
Frontier – which has been in active development for the last 19 months -
is the first transparent end-to-end election system including precinct
and central count digital optical scan tabulators; a robust election
management and ballot preparation system; and tally, tabulation, and
reporting components. The system is based on an open architecture with
publicly disclosed source code from an experienced election technology
provider with a track record of supplying innovative election solutions
to its customers.
Frontier is a revolutionary step forward for paper-based optical scan
voting systems as it offers the only truly auditable paper-based voting
system using patent-pending, triple-relatable-record transactional
ballot processing. This feature forms the cornerstone of the Frontier
Election System as it allows election officials to securely and
anonymously audit every electronic record, scanned image, and paper
ballot on a record-by-record basis including full statistical audit
capability. You can learn more about the Frontier Election System by
reviewing our October 27, 2009 press release found at http://sequoiavote.com/press.php?ID=85.
Additional information about Frontier will be forthcoming on Sequoia’s
website at www.sequoiavote.com.
More details about Sequoia’s Frontier Election System’s source code
release can be found at the following page on Sequoia’s website: http://sequoiavote.com/sourceRelease.php.
About Sequoia Voting Systems (www.sequoiavote.com)
Sequoia Voting Systems is an American-owned and operated international
election technology provider headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Sequoia
has over a century of experience in providing accurate, reliable and
innovative voting solutions to hundreds of customers throughout 16
states and the District of Columbia including the City of Chicago and
Cook County, Illinois, the State of Louisiana, the State of Nevada and
the majority of counties in California. Sequoias product suite includes
a comprehensive election management system, precinct-based optical scan
voting units, high-speed central count optical scan ballot readers,
full-face and paginating electronic voting equipment with optional
printers that produce voter verified paper records and electronic
pollbooks. In addition to its robust election technology products,
Sequoia also supplies customized training solutions, ballot design,
printing services and complete implementation and support programs to
its customers.
Frontier Election System™ is a trademark of Sequoia Voting Systems,
Inc. All rights reserved

Source: Business Wire