EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Linda Lamone
Organization : | National Association of State Election Directors
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 6.8
Page no. : |
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Comment : | April 17, 2005 Dear Technical Guidelines Development Committee: In their letter dated April 7, 2005, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) advised the states that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the EAC Technical Guidelines Development Committee will issue its first set of recommendations at the TGDC Plenary Meeting on April 20-21, 2005. According to the EAC, among the recommendations will be guidelines for testing a voting systems with a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). The VVPAT guidelines will be directed to those states that have already legislated the use of a VVPAT and are intended to provide guidelines so that the VVPAT products can be adequately tested. The elections community welcomes the involvement of NIST and looks forward to improved voluntary voting system standards. Improved standards are needed as the direct recording electronic voting system (DRE) technology represents the next generation of voting system technology and traditional methods of testing and auditing voting systems are based on paper systems. NIST can help the elections community develop public trust and confidence with this technology by issuing new procedures for logic and accuracy testing, audits, voter verification, and recounts. We believe that state legislatures need technical guidance from you and the TGDC regarding these new policies and procedures. However, we are concerned that by issuing VVPAT standards to the exclusion of any other standards, it will appear that NIST tacitly endorses VVPATs as THE solution to public confidence and trust in electronic voting systems. [Statements submitted to NIST Technical Guidelines Development Committee]