CRT Teleconference
Thursday, June 7, 2007
11:00 a.m. EDT
Draft Meeting Minutes

Draft Agenda:

1) Administrative updates (Eustis)
2) Issues received from TGDC members and the public (continued). See the files under "CRT VVSG finalization working materials:" at http://vote.nist.gov/TGDC/crt/index.html (Flater)
3) Any other items.

Attendees: Alan Goldfine, Allan Eustis, David Flater, John Wack, Jon Crickenberger (NVLAP), Mat Masterson (EAC), Thelma Allen, Wendy Havens

Administrative Updates:

  • TGDC Plenary Teleconference scheduled for July 3. We plan to distribute VVSG draft electronically, if anyone needs a hard copy email voting@nist.gov.

Issues Received (David Flater):

At the last meeting, it was decided that issues with terminology would be discussed with Paul Miller, CRT is awaiting feedback.

Issues discussed today:

  • The "general election" term which had created a lot of controversy was deleted as the term was not used in VVSG requirements.
  • The definitions partisan contest and non-partisan contest were changed to part specific contest and non-party specific contest, respectively.
  • The definition for primary election was changed to match the definition in VVSG 05. The definition can be altered to make it more acceptable without damage to the requirements.
  • The term jurisdiction had been used with multiple meanings by CRT and STS. The definition (awaited NASED approval) is: Administrative unit that is the entire scope within which the voting system is used; e.g., a county. Note: The jurisdiction corresponds to the top-level reporting context for which the system generates reports. STS to replace uses of the term jurisdiction with words to the effect of "system owner."
  • Scratch vote vs. crossover vote: We are trying to avoid terms that already have pre-determined meanings. However, if the way we use crossover vote matches election officials, we will use that term instead.
  • Ballot activation definition: CRT and STS have used the term in different ways. CRT is awaiting feedback on what meanings are in practice in the election community.
  • The terms "vote" and "ballot" are sensitive. CRT is happy with the definition for vote. The definition for ballot is a lot trickier, it was left out of previous VVSG. The meaning of ballot is usually obvious from context, but we are not aware of any attempt to construct a single, universal definition of ballot that succeeded. CRT would like to discuss with TGDC.

The issue log is currently about 165 pages, with 1 page per issue. David Flater has incorporated many comments and given tentative resolutions for many. To summarize the issues, most are editorial, lots of glossary terms, David Wagner had a lot on coding standards which were not serious modifications but clarified a lot of ambiguities. A lot of comments were received from Ron Rivest and David Wagner, we are awaiting comments from other TGDC members.

Next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 14, 2007.

Meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.


[* Pursuant to the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the TGDC is charged with directing NIST in performing voting systems research so that the TGDC can fulfill its role of recommending technical standards for voting equipment to the EAC. This teleconference discussion served the purposes of the CRT subcommittee of the TGDC to direct NIST staff and coordinate its voting-related research relevant to the VVSG 2007. Discussions on this telecon are preliminary, pre-decisional and do not necessarily reflect the views of NIST or the TGDC.]

 

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