Public Meeting for VoteTechnical Guidelines Development Committee 1/18

Sunshine Act Notice, buried on the EAC webpage with the wrong date:

Meeting to "review and approve an outline plan to establish recommendations for voluntary voting system guidelines."

Is this worthwhile? What is meant by "voluntary voting system"?

U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
1225 New York Ave. NW – Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
SUNSHINE ACT NOTICE
AGENCY: United States Election Assistance Commission
* * * * * * * *
ACTION: Notice of Public Meeting for the Technical Guidelines
Development Committee
DATE & TIME: Tuesday January 18, 2005 9 am-5 pm and
Wednesday January 19, 2005 9 am-5 pm
PLACE: National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Building 101
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-8900.
STATUS: This Meeting Will Be Open To The Public. Due to security
requirements advance registration is required. Registration
information is available at http://vote.nist.gov. Advance reservation
is available until January 12, 2005. There is no fee to attend.
SUMMARY: The Technical Guidelines Development Committee (the
“Development Committee”) has scheduled a plenary meeting for
January 18 & 19, 2005. The Committee was established pursuant
to 42 U.S.C. § 15361(b)(1), to act in the public interest to assist
the Executive Director of the Election Assistance Commission in
the development of the voluntary voting system guidelines. The
Committee held its first organizational meeting on July 9th, 2004.
The purpose of this second meeting of the Committee will be to
review and approve an outline plan to establish recommendations
for voluntary voting system guidelines.
CONTACT INFORMATION: Allan Eustis 301-975-5099. If a member of the public
would like to submit written comments concerning the Committee’s affairs at any time
before and after the meeting, written comments should be addressed to the contact
person indicated above, or to Voting@nist.gov.


http://www.eac.gov/docs/EAC%20-%20Sunshine%20Notice%20(%20TGDC%20%20Jan%2018-19%20%202005%20).pdf

http://vote.nist.gov./ECPosStat.htm

Here is Democracy Systems':

January 3, 2005


Allan C. Eustis
Project Leader- NIST Voting Systems Standards
Technology Building 225 Room B257
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8901
Gaithersburg , Md. 20899-8901

RE: Response to the NIST and the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC)


Dear Mr. Eustis,

Democracy Systems welcomes the opportunity to submit the following information for the TGDC standards development process.

The recommendations for TGDC Standards are foundational elements to a secure, manageable, effective, and transparent vote verification solution.

Relative to the TGDC’s three areas of interest:

Section 1 - Human Factors and Privacy
Section 2 - Security and Transparency
Section 3 - Core Requirements and Testing



Human Factors and Privacy:

1. Any voting verification must retain the voters’ right to cast their ballot independently and in complete privacy. The voting verification system must insure equal accessibility and privacy for all voters, the visually challenged, hearing impaired, disabled, and voters where English is not the primary language.

2. Any voting verification device should include a metric on the length of time it
encumbers an average voter to verify the ballot, what percentage of voters actually verify the ballot and of those, what percentage actually verify the entire ballot. This metric should also include a sum total of the increased amount of time required for an average precinct to process voters for an entire election day. It is expected that any “voter” verified paper system will substantially impact the amount of time required to vote and thereby the number of DRE units, poll workers and support resources needed to process voters in a reasonable time frame.

3. Any voting verification system should include a metric on the length of time an average poll worker must spend to set up the voting verification device, attending to the device throughout Election Day and the subsequent logistical management of the verifications systems output of data. Similarly, poll worker training metrics should be evaluated on any verification system.

4. Long term printing, paper, ink and repair cost estimates for any verification system that requires paper and printers. This metric should also include time, cost, and capability of retrofitting and management of existing in-service DRE systems with the voting verification system. Similarly, logistical impacts of the storage, evaluation, and security handling of all paper generated must be considered.

5. All data output of any verification system must ensure the privacy of every voter and of all ballots cast.

6. Development of Election Code and Legislation for the canvassing of VVPT paper election results from DRE units and the certification of election results. Election Code should also specifically address the canvassing and certification of an election wherein the DRE software results are inconsistent with the associated vendor generated paper verification system results.




Security and Transparency:

1. Vote Verification is defined as any system that securely and independently verifies or audits the votes cast on a DRE, and/or independently verifies or audits the final election results.

2. An independent verification system is defined as a system that must be completely independent of the DRE vendor’s software application. Any verification system that must integrate or receive data from the vendor’s software cannot be defined as “independent”.

3. All voting verification systems must submit the most recent software version, or hash, to the escrow repository of NIST Software Library and meet acceptable standards for software development.

4. We strongly encourage that all voting verification solutions offer a defined process of transparency for authorized peer review.

5. We strongly encourage that encryption technologies be included in vote verification system.

6. Any verification system must be capable generating and providing for third party independent review its data output of any election or election process.

7. We recommend that Independent Verification Systems have an equally important application in the pre and post election activities, election software management monitoring, logic and accuracy testing, acceptance testing and ITA evaluation to further enhance the security and transparency of the election process.

8. Any certified voting verification system must provide the facilities to publish the results of the election audit or verification for public review, to the Web, or other mass medium.

snip---
http://vote.nist.gov./ecposstatements/NIST%20-%20TGDC%20-%20Verification.doc

the standards should be. Is that correct? Isn't Ney the one who's having the hearing soon? He was past chair of EAC.