University Voting Systems Competition

The University Voting Systems Competition, or VoComp is an annual competition in which teams of students design, implement, and demonstrate open-source election systems [cite web |url= http://www.vocomp.org/overview.php|title= Overview|accessdate=2008-08-19 |date= 2006|publisher= University Voting Systems Competition ] . The systems are presented to a panel of security expert judges. The winners are awarded a cash prize provided by the sponsors.cite web |url= http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/uncle-sam-wants.html|title= Uncle Sam Wants You: To Build a Better Voting Machine|accessdate=2008-08-19 |last= Zetter|first= Kim |date= July 16, 2007|publisher= Wired] The competition was started by a group of students and professors from UMBC and George Washington University to inspire better ideas for electronic voting technology and raise student awareness of the political process. [cite web |url= http://www.umbc.edu/research/blog/2006/10/university_teams_to_kick_off_v.html|title= University Teams to Kick Off Voting Technology Competition|accessdate=2008-08-19 |last= crose|first= |coauthors= |date= October 31, 2006|work= |publisher= University of Maryland, Baltimore County]

Competitions

2006/2007 academic year

The first competition took place on July 16 - 19 during the 2006/2007 academic year in Portland, Oregon. The event was sponsored by The National Science Foundation, Election Systems & Software, and Hewlett-Packard Company. The four teams that competed were: "The Prêt-à-Voter Battle Bus" from University of Surrey, " [http://w-vote.im.pwr.wroc.pl/ The Voting Ducks] " from Wroclaw University of Technology, " [http://www.primevotingsystem.com/ Prime III] " from Auburn University, and "Punchscan" a team consisting of members from George Washington University, University of Ottawa, and University of Maryland, Baltimore County [cite web |url= http://www.vocomp.org/teams.php|title= List of VoComp Teams|accessdate=2008-08-19 |date= 2006|publisher= University Voting Systems Competition ] . The judging panel incuded MIT professor Ron Rivest, Microsoft security researcher Josh Benaloh and John Kelsey of NIST.

The Punchscan team was awarded the "Best-Election System" grand prize and $10,000 from ES&S after uncovering a security flaw in the random number generator in the source code of the runner-up team, Pret-a-Voter.cite web |url= http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/us-team-wins-vo.html|title= US/Canada Team Wins Voting Machine Competition|accessdate=2008-08-19 |last= Zetter|first= Kim |date= July 19, 2007|publisher= Wired] .

External links

* [http://vocomp.org/ Official VoComp Site]
* [http://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0650498 National Science Foundation Award Abstract]

References