EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Sanford Morganstein
Organization : | Populex Corporation
Post Date : | 8/26/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 6.4.4.11
Page no. : | 13
Line no.: | 6
Comment : | Discussion: We believe that other sections of the VVSG make clear that this section is not intended to require vendors to provide copies of source code of third party software. However, we do not believe that this is unambiguous, since the Glossary mentions “executable” code in the context of “Voting System Software” and not “third party Software.” Source code is simply not available for all software included in a voting system. “Software,” in its most general interpretation, exists in voting systems in places that may not be obvious: from keyboard firmware to touch screen position interpreters to embedded printer firmware, to smart card readers, to the computer BIOS and boot ROM, etc. Vendors of such hardware components simply do not make their code, source or executable, available.