Ballot Browser is
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
ballot counting software developed initially for the
Humboldt County (California) Election Transparency Project. In November 2008, counting performed with Ballot Browser revealed a bug in
Premier Election Solutions' (formerly
Diebold Election Systems) GEMS tabulation software. Subsequent investigation by the California Secretary of State led to the decertification of the GEMS version used in Humboldt County.
Ballot Browser was developed by Mitch Trachtenberg and was available, free, from http://www.tevsystems.com.
Source code
As of April 2024 while the domain tevsystems.com is still maintained, there appear to be no IP addresses associated with the domain so the site is unreachable. As of April 2024 the software itself remains available from
SourceForge
SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirrorin ...
via a
cvs
CVS may refer to:
Organizations
* CVS Health, a US pharmacy chain
** CVS Pharmacy
** CVS Caremark, a prescription benefit management subsidiary
* Council for Voluntary Service, England
* Cable Video Store, former US pay-per-view service
* CVS F ...
repository.
[Ballot Browser source code CVS repository check out instructions]
/ref>
The Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...
shows that www.tevsystems.com was active until at least 9 August 2014.[The Wayback Machine: www.tevsystems.com @ 9th August 2014]
/ref> By the next poll on 18 December 2014, the site had been replaced by a banner message directing those interested in TEVS to email Mitch Trachtenberg.
All three "Downloads" links on 9 August 2014 version of the page[ redirect to the TEVS code repository, which as of April 2024 still exists on the Google code archive, and records that it was created on the 21st March 2011.][Google Code Archive: TEVS Project page.]
/ref> That page indicates that the project has been renamed to "TEVS":
Licensing
While the Ballot Browser project pageBallot Browser project page on SourceForge
/ref> declares the license as "GNU General Public License version 2.0 (GPL
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...
v2)", the source code itself[ reports the license as "version 3 of the GNU General Public License." throughout, and includes the full text of version 3 of the GPL within the source file: HelpMessages.py.][
]
References
{{reflist
* Ballot Browser home page: http://www.tevsystems.com
* Mitch Trachtenberg's essay on developing Ballot Browser: https://web.archive.org/web/20090503233649/http://www.mitchtrachtenberg.com/ourvotes.html
* Article from Wired's "Threat Level" blog by Kim Zetter: https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/12/unique-transpar
* Secretary of State Debra Bowen's report to the Federal EAC on the Diebold problem
Google archive of http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/sos-humboldt-report-to-eac-03-02-09.pdf
* Mitch Trachtenberg's SourceForge profile page, which links to the Ballot Browser code repository: https://sourceforge.net/u/mtrachtenberg/profile/
Election technology software