EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | David B. Aragon
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines ("VVSG") released June 30. I am a senior engineer for a leading provider of enterprise-grade wireless networking equipment, and I have included detailed comments on the wireless section (§6.7) of VVSG. (In these comments, I am not representing or speaking for my employer, but as an individual citizen and engineer guided by the IEEE Code of Ethics.) My previous involvement in voting system standards development includes about two years' active participation in IEEE PI 583 on behalf of the voting rights organization Votennarch. I was chosen by P 1583 chair Herb Deutsch to co-chair the Special Task Group on V oter- Verified Paper Ballots (STG-3), and also participated in the Usability and Accessibility Task Group (TG-3), upon whose work TGDC has drawn in composing the VVSG. I am the principal author of PI583's Annex on Accessibility of Voter-Verified Ballots. I now serve on the Executive Committee of the Voting Systems Performance Rating group (vspr.org). Much of my professional career has involved high-volume, high-integrity document processing systems for the financial and public utility industries, a field in which I hold patents and have received the TRW Chairman's Award for Innovation. My attached comments emphasize that voters and observers without these technical credentials are the ones to whom the integrity of the system must be obvious. Regrettably, the Guidelines presently fail to meet that goal. EAC must work in an environment of politics, pressure and deadlines ill-suited for decisions with long-term moral implications. The recommendations below all derive from respect for the voter, and for the kind of society that can be built on such respect. I ask the Commissioners to read them in that spirit, and further in evaluating all of the public comments, to be alert to the voice of conscience which is seldom as clamorous as the voices of personal or economic interest.