EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Hank Dietz
Organization : | University of Kentucky
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
General Comments
Comment : | What constitutes a loggable event? Logging of changes to the voter interface, such as switching to a different language or alternative input mechanism, seriously compromises privacy in situations where small numbers of voters use alternative interfaces. Hardware and software problems and voting selections clearly should be logged, but perhaps not user interface events. On the other hand, logging user interface changes may be helpful in diagnosing problems that affect only one type of user interface. This same general issue also appears with respect to paper records exposing choice of, for example, an alternative language interface. Better privacy would be obtained by using only one paper record format, even for VVPAT: other means can be used to translate the printed record for the voter. For example, a magnifying lens can change apparent font size or a scanner and voice rendering technology can translate for alternative language users (with essentially the same VVPAT scan-based voice rendering advocated on page 2-22, lines 1-10, for blind voters).