EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Bob Terwilliger
Organization : | Snohomish County Auditor’s Office ( Washington)
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 6
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Comment : | Finally, I would like to make some comments on Section 6 which deals with the standards for electronic voting. In order for Independent Dual Verification Systems to be useful the standards for this option must be developed quickly and, hopefully, economically as well. Being a county that has electronic voting at the polls, and also being from a state that has required VVPATs effective January 1, 2006, my county is faced with spending $1 million to comply with this requirement. If other jurisdictions can benefit from the quick development of IDVS at a reasonable cost then the two major issues surrounding electronic voting as stated in the Draft VVSGs, “whether electronic voting systems are accurately recording ballot choices, and whether the ballot record contents can be audited precisely post election” may be resolved without resorting to the expensive alternative of VVPATs. The requirement for VVPATs that various states, including Washington, have passed may well complicate the polling place environment without any real proof that the two major audit issues for electronic voting have been met. I am convinced that the process we have in place in Snohomish County for programming, testing, deploying and auditing of DRE voting machines, coupled with the enhanced and more rigorous testing standards in the Draft VVSGs for software and hardware, is sufficient to demonstrate that electronic voting machines are accurate and trustworthy. The VVPAT solution or the IDVS solution need to be both available at a cost within reach of local election jurisdictions and in a manner transparent to the voter to be effective in showing that electronic voting is both accurate and trustworthy. [Statements submitted at EAC public hearing, August 23, 2005, Denver]