EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Alfie Charles
Organization : | Sequoia Voting Systems
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 2.2.7.2.2.6
Page no. : | 2-22
Line no.: | 1-10
Comment : | Most state vvpat laws passed to-date have treated the electronic record as the official ballot and the paper record as either an audit trail or an official paper record, but not the official ballot. However for those states that opt to treat the paper record as the official ballot, we are concerned that the addition of a text-to-speech audio conversion process might render the Acc-VS unavailable or overly complicated for the user -- likely running afoul of the HAVA Section 301 (a) (3)(A) requirement for independence. Currently, the audio voter receives an audio playback of the selections that are recorded on the electronic ballot and are represented on the paper record. Through the certification process and pre-election testing, voters are assured that the paper record reflects the selections made on the audio ballot. We recommend that for this version of the VVSG, the word “shall” should be changed to either “may” or “should” until such time as technology is available to ensure this new approach would provide a seamless process for blind and visually impaired voters. Additionally, this section uses “blind” and “visually impaired” interchangeably. That should be corrected.