EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Jordi Puiggali
Organization : | Scytl Secure Electronic Voting
Post Date : | 9/9/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 6.8
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Comment : | Advantages and limitations of Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) solutions Among all the voter-verifiability solutions, perhaps the best-known consists in attaching a printer to every DRE. The printer is used to produce a physical record of the vote (i.e., a paper ballot) after the voter has selected the desired voting options in the DRE. The voter can then visually check that the printed options match those she has just selected on the DRE, and the paper record can be later used in a parallel recount independent from the electronic record given by the DRE. This kind of solutions is known as Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT. The main advantages of VVPAT solutions for DREs are: · VVPAT solutions can be, under certain assumptions, an effective method to guarantee that votes are cast as the voters intended. · VVPAT solutions are based on tangible elements (i.e., paper) and, therefore, have great capability to generate voter confidence. · VVPAT solutions are simple and, therefore, they are easy to understand by average voters. · VVPAT solutions provide election authorities with a physical record that can be used to carry out a parallel recount independent from the results of the DRE. As a result of these advantages, many groups favor the adoption of VVPAT solutions and a number of states have initiated legislative reforms to implement VVPAT solutions in their current DRE equipment. Still, VVPAT solutions show some drawbacks and limitations that may represent a serious roadblock to the adoption of VVPAT by some states. Furthermore, these disadvantages can also lead to a number of serious problems once VVPAT solutions are implemented in real elections.