EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | James Johnson
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 6.7
Page no. : |
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Comment : | In almost all other aspects, IrDA and RF are more similar than they are different. The power level of RF devices can be reduced so that they operate only over short ranges (1 meter) specified for IrDA or IR devices can be increased in power level so they operate over longer distances if desired. While IR devices can be designed to be highly directional, the 30 degree cone specified with IrDA means the signal sill spread if there is significant distance between the transmitter and receiver. A highly directional implementation would require more precise pointing thus limiting the usefulness in a polling place. The fact that infrared radiation reflects off surfaces also means that some of the benefits of its directional nature are lost. The same upper layer communications protocols can be used with either an IR or RF physical layer. They can both be easily added as nodes on a LAN. Will other optical devices have to be banned from polling places? As IrDa becomes more widely deployed, it will be used in cell phones, PDA, watches and other devices. These devices may operate in the same portions of the spectrum as voting system and thus become a source of interference. Even if they do not pass intelligible signals to the voting device (which could occur if the same protocol is also used and the signals are not encrypted) they will interfere with the signals being exchanged between voting system causing an increase in the bit error rate. [Statements submitted to NIST Technical Guidelines Development Committee]