A team including a University of Maryland Baltimore County graduate student won the grand prize yesterday in an international competition to design more accurate voting machines.
Judges at the VoComp University Voting Systems Competition in Portland, Ore., selected the four-person "Punchscan" team that included UMBC computer science graduate student Richard T. Carback III.
One of four finalists, Punchscan designed, implemented and tested a complete voting system at a student election at the University of Ottawa, said Alan T. Sherman, a UMBC computer science professor who also works with the school's National Center for the Study of Elections. He was the organizer of the competition.
The contest's goal was to foster innovation and student involvement in the technology of democracy, according to its Web site.
In addition to the $10,000 grand prize, the team received a laptop computer from one of the competition sponsors, Hewlett-Packard, for best implementation.