EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | John Gideon
Organization : | VotersUnite
Post Date : | 9/28/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Among the guidelines laid out for this committee by the EAC charter is a requirement, in law, that the committee operate in the public interest. The seventh of the "Administrative Provisions" shows a concern by the EAC that there be no conflict of interest in the decision makers. Given the “protections” against conflicts of interest and in favor of the public interest, we might expect good things to come out of the committee. However, reports from witnesses to the April 20/21 meeting of the TGDC are quite troubling. During discussions of voter verified paper audit trail requirements, Dr. Brit Williams, a member of the committee, stated that he opposes any new standards that would make technology already purchased non-compliant. Paul Craft, another member of the committee, then suggested that they hear from the vendor engineers who were in the audience to see what they would do about the proposed standards. At this point, Dr. Semerjian, the chairman of the committee and the Director of NIST, said that the TGDC is not in existence to approve existing voting systems, nor rubber stamp state decisions. The committee then went on a break. Upon return from the break Paul Craft announced that he had talked to the vendors and that they did not like some of the standards. A vote was then held and those standards were deleted. It is clear that the EAC charter is not being followed in that conflicts of interest are dictating the workings of this committee. It appears that this committee is not operating in the public interest, but in the interest of the vendors by dropping (and likely adding) items to achieve industry objectives, and not in the public interest.