EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | John Gideon
Organization : | VotersUnite
Post Date : | 9/28/2005
General Comments
Comment : | April 28, 2005 IS THE NIST TECHNICAL GUIDELINES DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE WORKING FOR YOU, THE VOTER? Voting Machine Rulemakers Poised to Violate Their Public Interest Mandate Should the makers of voting machines set the standards that their voting machines must live up to in order to satisfy the public interest? Though the answer is obviously No, a recent meeting of a technical subcommittee of the Election Assistance Commission shows that this is happening, yet the EAC will likely reveal these new standards, on or about July 1, coupled with a claim that they adequately protect the heart of democracy. By way of background, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) was chartered by the Elections Assistance Commission to provide updated standards against which all voting machines will be tested in order to be qualified for use. Presently voting technology is qualified to standards that were written in 1990 or 2002. The charter instructs NIST to form a committee to be called the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC). This committee is to operate with guidance from the EAC charter and with funding coming from the EAC. The TGDC has been holding public meetings as they go through the suggested standards they have developed for qualifying all voting systems. They are modifying or deleting suggested standards in order to have a finished product that will set the standards for the industry.