As part of its overall commitment to voter confidence and election auditability, every new voting system sold by Hart InterCivic will include an auditable paper ballot. As a direct result, Hart has discontinued the sale of paperless Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems.

Hart InterCivic recognizes that voter confidence is highest where there is a paper record of every vote, and Hart is committed to taking every step possible to protect America’s trust in our country’s elections. Our decision to include a paper trail in every voting system we sell was primarily driven by Hart’s commitment to developing solutions that support software-independent audits, recounts and risk-limiting audits (RLAs), all of which require a paper-based voting system.

“All Hart InterCivic voting machines are tested and secure, but we believe that focusing our efforts on paper-based voting systems is an important step to further enhance voter confidence,” said Julie Mathis, CEO of Hart InterCivic, an Austin-based company with more than 100 years of experience providing election solutions. “The use of paper-based ballots will lead to increased levels of auditability and usability, as well as provide an extra layer of assurance for voters that their votes are being counted as cast. Voter confidence has been and will remain a top priority for all of us at Hart.”

While existing DRE customers will continue to receive support from Hart, we will also enable customers to transition to a paper-based voting system through the unique versatility of the Verity system. Specifically, Verity DRE customers can choose to return their DRE units to Hart where they can be converted to our paper-based Verity Duo units. These new devices, along with new precinct scanners, will allow jurisdictions to transition quickly and easily to paper-based voting in a conversion process that is more cost effective than the purchase of a full new set of equipment. As an added benefit, the voter selections from the paper ballots produced by the Verity system are not hidden in unreadable barcodes or QR codes, but rather are in human readable form. Verity is the only voting system on the market that provides this assurance that votes are captured based on the same information voters can personally read and review.