Technical
Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) AGENDA
Our next telecon is scheduled for: Friday, March 16, 2007 at 11 AM ET Attendees: Alexis Scott-Morrison, Alice Miller, David Baquis (U.S. Access Board), David Flater, John Cugini, John Wack, Mat Masterson (EAC), Nelson Hastings, Sharon Laskowski, Tricia Mason, Wendy Havens, Whitney Quesenbery Administrative
Updates (Allan Eustis):
Presentations/Materials
to be presented at the plenary meeting were discussed. Sharon discussed
the material related to the usability benchmarks (she will be working
on this over the weekend as well):
Sharon and
Whitney have been having an offline discussion regarding system testing
and how that might fit into volume testing. If users are being brought
in for volume testing, we could use them for benchmarking testing. For accessibility,
there is a need to do a whole system test of the process for different
disabilities to make sure the system is definitely accessible. The other
TGDC subcommittees want to do process testing, such as auditability, accessibility,
setup validation, volume testing, etc. Sharon will include this as a "future
activities" bullet. Discussion
was held regarding usability of the VVPAT papers rolls for audits, etc.
It has generated a high level of problems for poll workers and election
officials. This is not something HFP has spent a lot of time looking at
because it has been concentrating on usability for voters. John Wack feels
that changing the way items are printed onto flat sheets (preferable),
will not offer a fundamental change to the voting system. The setup by
poll workers is critical and needs to be looked at. John would like feedback
from election officials. It might be good to look at the requirements
written for the product and that would require a possible change to the
paper used, e.g., stand up for 22 months with lots of handling. John will
be engaging Dan Schutzer's input regarding this matter. Software
Independence (SI) and Accessibility: Working
with STS, we now have a clear definition about what SI is and what it
means by voter verification. SI is making sure that any problems with
the election can be detected afterwards. It is not necessary for everyone
to verify their ballots for SI to hold. Voter verification has to be available
for everyone. The discussion then clarified the difference between direct
and indirect verification. A sighted voter can verify by reading the ballot
printout, a blind voter would need assistive technology to indirectly
verify their printout. The table regarding the four different approaches
and their scores were discussed. Concern was expressed over the audio
tape recordings and the possibility of tampering with them. There is also
an issue with recounting two different types of media that is why there
are minuses in the auditability and accessibility/usability columns of
the paper. Ron Rivest
and Whitney will present a summary of this research paper at the plenary
meeting for discussion by the full TGDC. The goal is to decide which,
if any, of the approaches outlined, are suitable to meet the resolution
that all systems are SI. Hopefully this will help to decide which architectures
can be taken off the table, and which are suitable. There may be a possible
resolution, but the discussion will allow subcommittee to move their work
forward. At the next meeting (in May) we have to adopt final draft of
requirements to forward to EAC. ACTION
ITEM: Whitney, Tricia, and David will make sure that the external
(public) web page URL information is circulated when released and let
people know that comments can be sent to voting@nist.gov. [* 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 serves the purposes of the HFP 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 and do not necessarily reflect the views of NIST or the TGDC.]
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