Witnesses:  Tom Davis, Managing Member/Vice –Chairman & Co-founder, iPaper/Diversified Dynamics; William F Welsh II, Chairman, Election Systems and Software; Brian J O'Conner, Executive Vice President, Global Election Systems, Inc.; David E Hart, Chairman and Founder, Hart InterCivic, Inc.; Richard E. Caruso, PHD,  Founder/Chairman,  Shoup Voting Solutions, Inc.; Marlene Duffy Young, Regional Marketing Representative  Unilect; James Minadeo, Product Manager, Princeton Junction, Avante; Scott Fairbairn, Regional Sales Manager, Envox (US) LTD; Mark Strama, Vice President, Public Elections, election.com; David Chaum, PhD, Founder, SureVote; Ralph Munro,  Former Secretary of State, Wahington Board of Directors, VoteHere; Dennis Vadura  Chief Executive Officer, Web Tools International.
 
Mr. Davis made the following recommendations: require all voting systems to be approved by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED); refuse to provide funding for the “grand fathering” of any equipment that has not met Federal guidelines; prohibit “waivers” or the issuance of “pending certifications” for equipment; and  require uniform reporting of election results.  The technology to fix America’s voting system problems exists and will probably cost less than is thought to deploy it.

Mr. Welsh said  the largest impediment to modernizing election systems is money not technology.  We have  technical solutions that effectively address most issues that voters had last year but there is no rush to adopt them.  Suggested a grant program of matching funds to States and local jurisdiction be considered.  Grant money should include funding for education and training purposes as well as equipment purchases.

Mr. O’Connor said that the Government should provide funding not to purchase equipment but to support the infrastructure behind electronic voting.  Industry has the capacity to replace outdated machines by the 02 or 04 elections if a Government  plan of action would allow the industry to address the marketplace as a whole instead of  by the current system-by-system scenario.

Mr. Hart briefly described the benefits of using electronic voting systems : votes are recorded directly as cast by the voter; systems can be programmed to prevent overvoting, allow easy corrections by voters and warn voters if they are  undervoting; specialized devices for disabled voters; automatic tabulation and auditing.  The Federal government, through the FEC or through a newly created body, could act as clearinghouse for best practices and data regarding vendor performance and capabilities.  Called for direct Federal aid to states and counties to assist with the purchase of new equipment.

Dr. Caruso said that while improved voting equipment is a central component of any reform effort, it must also include improvements in voter registration systems, ballot preparation and election management systems and in central tallying systems.  The key to Federal involvement is not more study of the issues but more resources--  Congress should expedite Federal money to state and local govenments to fund needed election reform.  Believes the Federal Election Commission should work with NASED to designate additional certifying institutions.

Ms. Young said  there is no perfect voting system, but a paperless voting system is far superior in reducing voter error and ensuring vote count accuracy.  Touch-screen systems offer much better accommodation for voters with disabilities.  Most states require their own independent certification process–this is time-consuming and expensive.  The Federal process should include a test election component which requires the equipment to simulate and run an election of a reasonable size (at least 30 precincts)–would eliminate the need for duplicative testing at the state level.

Mr. Minadeo believes his company can provide certainty to voters that their votes are counted correctly while maintaining voters’ privacy including allowing military personnel in a particular location to vote and have their votes counted correctly at the same time as everyone else.   He said that the national certification process is important and that vote count accuracy, system and data security should be the primary certification criteria.  The 700,000 voting systems required to retrofit the nation’s voting system should cost less than $3.5B and could be done in time for the 2002 national election.  Cost could be cut to less than $2B if most states allow early voting.

Mr. Fairbairn described how voting by phone would allow the disabled voter to vote an independent, unassisted, private ballot.  He recommends that the Federal government review the processes  for certifying voting systems-- current system is cumbersome, expensive and does not take into consideration “off the shelf” technology.  Congress should convince the disabled population that their access to voting systems is not an afterthought–current system falls well short of widespread accessibility.

Mr. Strama said that a dramatic surge in demand to replace outdated machines by 2002 would burden the voting equipment vendors beyond their capacity to respond.   Urged Congress to fund FEC’s Office of Election Administration to complete the updating of standards.  He believes that with half as many polling places open for a longer period of time, it would be more convenient and accessible for the voter and would significantly reduce the amount of equipment counties must purchase.   He believes that the biggest and best technology companies in the world need to be engaged in the election reform effort.  Congress should remain focused on the broader issues relating to election reform such as the accuracy of the voter registration database not just voting equipment.  The first step for Internet voting should be for the military.

Mr. Chaum recommends holding a national competition between consortia, similar to the NIST successful competitions (for the Advanced Encryption Standard) to propose different solutions.  At the end, a panel of experts from Federal agencies would decide which systems are acceptable and criteria for Federal elections could be formed around them.

Mr. Munro believes the answer is to upgrade voting systems to use modern computer technology–PCs.  All election systems must meet the requirements of security, privacy and audit.  Congress should continue generating attention to the issues of election reform.  There are electronic and online solutions that exist today which will prevent many of the challenges that occurred in the last election.  He sees a role for Congress in helping to disenfranchised voters–specifically the disabled and military communities.  Technology exists to include them in elections with the same levels of privacy and convenience as the rest of the country.

Mr. Vadura described WTI’s polling place electronic voting system, that guides the voter through the voting process using a touch sensitive screen, allows the voter to review their ballot for correctness and provides the voter with a paper ballot that contains their selections and which they deposit in a ballot box..  The official paper ballots can be audited against the electronic ballots stored by the system and electronic ballots can be audited against the paper ballots which serve to prevent the possibility of ballot counting error, electronic tampering or paper ballot fraud.   The equipment certification process should focus on developing the functionality, testing and audit standards required to certify voting system software on generic hardware platforms.  Federal government should provide funding to the states to facilitate election reform and require uniform statewide election standards including voting devices and vote-counting processes.

Chairman Ney inquired whether purchases could be made in time for the 2002 election and Mr. Welsh responded that they could manufacture replacement technology relative quickly and that training workers was important.  Mr. Davis and Hart agreed.  Representative Hoyer and witnesses discussed the possibility of using the internet for overseas military voting.  Representative Hoyer discussed  the  problems of the lack of central accessible verification and provisional balloting (setting ballot aside for registration verification).  Representative Hoyer discussed the Help Americans Vote program whereby students are trained to help in elections. Mr. Welsh said that a similar system worked well in Venezuela.  Chairman Ney and Mr. Vadura and Mr. Chaum discussed the pros and cons of internet voting and that internet voting is not a technical issue as much as it is a social issue.  Chairman Ney voiced skepticism regarding internet voting and called for the right balance to be sought.

Prepared by:  Relda Nacos, NIST, 975-3080
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