CRT Teleconference
Thursday, May 31, 2007
11:00 a.m. EDT
Meeting Minutes

Draft Agenda:

1) Administrative updates (Eustis)
2) Issues received from TGDC members and the public. (Note: These issues have not yet been processed; we expect to have some issue tracking and some issue discussion started before the plenary telecon.)
3) Any other items.

Attendees:  Alan Goldfine, Allan Eustis, Brit Williams, David Flater, John Wack, Jon Crickenberger (NVLAP), Michael Koo, Nelson Hastings, Sharon Laskowski

Administrative Updates:

  • July 3, 2007, will be the TGDC plenary teleconference meeting, as we will be able to have a quorum with 11 definite attendees.  The meeting should begin around 11:30 a.m.
  • All the materials for the May plenary are available on the web, including the official transcripts <http://vote.nist.gov/meeting20070521.htm>.
  • Everyone is reminded to look at the public comments received to date <http://vote.nist.gov/ECPosStat.htm>, there is a lot of good feedback.

Specific Issues on CRT Chapters Received from TGDC Members and Public (David Flater):

Open Issues:

  • Define Jurisdiction:  There appeared to be a conflict between the term as used by CRT and STS.  Upon discussion it appears that both subcommittees were in agreement of the intended use (to mean top level reporting, whoever maintains the server, usually the county or city, sometimes the state).  Clearer words will be used and sent to Paul Miller for feedback/agreement.
  • Integratability, Electronic Records, Open Export:  This was left hanging at the TGDC plenary meeting.  No proposed action today.
  • Partisan Contest Defined Wrong:  Upon discussion it appears that the definition used for this term is correct; however, the term itself is not.  This is one of those terms that already has outside of VVSG meaning so it is best to come up with different words for the term. 
  • [NOTE:  Since there appears to be confusion/frustration over glossary terms, it was decided that maybe they should be discussed with election officials on the TGDC.  Reminder from David Flater, the purpose of the glossary is when there is a requirement in the VVSG that uses a specific term, that term can be looked up in the glossary to determine the meaning of the requirement.  This is not meant to be a dictionary of terms.  In cases when the term may be used in the voting field with a different meaning, a new term needs to be selected, not new definitions.]
  • The terms audit and witness build were sent to STS for defining.  Nelson is working on and will discuss with David.
  • Definition of Volume Test:  This is a term of art.  David will come up with definition.

Closed Issues:

  • Terms such as test, test case, and test suite are used inconsistently.  Document will be reviewed and fixed.
  • The term certification is out of VVSG scope.  The VVSG defines the requirements for the voting systems, it does not speak on the certification process which is the prerogative of the EAC.
  • Acc-VS should be a sub-class of two other classes defined per HFP requests, voter editable ballot device (visual) and voter editable ballot device (audio).  Something that claims to be Acc-VS supports both.
  • Assumptions That Instructions Were Followed:  There will be a statement added under general requirements that says the requirements of the product standard in terms of what is supposed to be delivered in functionality and performance is based on the assumption that the system is deployed, calibrated, and tested as per the instructions of the vendor.
  • Mis-feed Rate Applied to EBMs: It was agreed that the mis-feed rate should be tweaked so that it is clear that feeding paper ballots into EBMs is also covered in the limitations of the numbers of mis-feeds that are tolerable in a conforming system.
  • The Terms Scratch Vote and Cross-Over Vote:  Will be discussed with Paul Miller.
  • Primary Election, General Election, Non-Partisan Contest:  All tied up with the term Partisan Contest
  • Definitions for VVPAT and VVPR:  Global change from “verified” to “verifiable”
  • Clarification of Draft:  There are several places where it says “click to add source or impact”, these will be deleted if not necessary.
  • Confusion About Write-in Votes, Choices of Party, and Open Primary:  Explained in the discussion fields.
  • There is a 0 tolerance for disenfranchisement failures and a non-0 tolerance for counting errors.  John Cugini from HFP had questioned this.  David says that it is correct because disenfranchisement failures are worse.
  • “Shake and Bake” Test Dropped Out of Draft:  It had been decided that maybe this should be left out and to include a discussion making reference to the test procedures but to not include the contents of those procedures.  Alan Goldfine informed the group that this is still in a state of flux and he is currently working on new wording that will include some general requirements.
  • Straight Party Voting, Absentee Voting, and Absentee Ballot:  Confusion over these terms because they are used in the voting world with different meanings than those used and intended in the VVSG.  David is working on a proposed resolution and will forward to the group for comments.

Next CRT meeting scheduled for Thursday, June 8, 2007.

Meeting adjourned at 11:50 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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