EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Dan McCrea et al.
Organization : | Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 2.2
Page no. : |
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Comment : | A second section of the VVSG needs to be broadened. Section 2.2 on Overall System Capabilities is too narrowly drawn. It does not include two key system functionalities that should be made expressly mandatory for DREs. First it does not specify that a system should ensure that each cast ballot is counted and counted only once. The NRC report expressly makes this principle a desideratum for Elections in Section 2.3. It states: “All cast ballots should be counted accurately.” This is the lodestar of a successful voting system and the inclusion of this as an express goal is essential to these guidelines. Its continuing absence will mean that critical measures necessary for a trusted election will be missing from the VVSG. A second part of Section 2.2 needs to be broadened. This section does not expressly ensure that the DRE software contain sufficient alerts to poll workers of machine malfunction. Vendors need to install software that clearly, unambiguously, and immediately informs election officials that an error has occurred. As the discussion of Precinct 816 in Get It Right the First Time makes clear, the DREs stuffed the ballot box without the vendor’s software alerting poll workers to this problem. Similarly, the NRC Report recommends that software needs to be designed to prevent such occurrences. See discussion point 5-9 on page 5-5.