EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | David Dill
Organization : | Verified Voting Foundation
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Glossary Comments
Glossary Term : | Directly Verified
Definition : |
Comment : | Voting system that allows the voter to verify at least one representation of his or her ballot with his/her own senses, not using any software or hardware intermediary. Examples of a directly verified voting system include DRE with a voter verified paper trail or marksense system. This is in contrast with an indirectly verified voting system. Association: voting, security Source: no attribution The term “ballot” has multiple meanings, and its use in this definition could be misconstrued as applying to an unmarked ballot, i.e., that a voting system is “directly verifiable” if the voter is able to directly verify that he or she has been issued the correct unmarked ballot on which to begin voting. There is nothing in the language of this definition that requires the voter to be able to directly verify that his or her selections/choices have been accurately captured on the “ballot” that is being verified. Although that requirement might be inferred by the examples given, it should be made explicit in the definition. Furthermore, this definition ducks the issue of whether the “one representation of his or her ballot” (that the voter is allowed to verify) is the actual entity (i.e., the “fundamental representation”) that is used both for initial counts and audits/recounts (as is the case for a marksense system) or only the latter (in the case of a DRE-VVPAT). By lumping both cases together under the category “Directly Verifiable”, these important distinctions are blurred, and these two significantly different levels of verification are treated as if they were equivalent, when clearly they are not. Suggested change: Change the term “Directly Verifiable” to “Directly Verifiable Record” so as to identify what entity is being verified. That way, if there are multiple records, the term distinguishes between those that are directly verifiable and those that are not.