Voting Working Groups - General Information

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) are utilizing a series of public working groups to inform the development of a new version of the EAC Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG).

NIST and EAC goals are to accelerate the development and adoption of the VVSG by leading these working groups in close consultation with election officials, the federal and private sectors, standards bodies and EAC committees, academic researchers, and other members of the public. The nearer-term aim is to shorten the time needed for development and adoption of a new version of the VVSG by having all interested parties at the table at the same time. The longer-term aim is to make the process by which subsequent new VVSG versions are created and revised more nimble in responding to new technological developments in voting and in associated areas such as accessibility, security, and usability.

The NIST and the EAC areas of focus for the working groups are in voting system technology, including accessibility, usability, interoperability, security, and testing. These focus areas will inform the development of VVSG requirements and the processes for VVSG revision.

NIST Voting Public Working Groups

Announcements and Information

Election Cycle Groups : for development of VVSG requirements

• Pre-Election Working Group
• Election Working Group
• Post-Election Working Group

Constituency Groups : for informing the election cycle groups

• Cyber Security Working Group
• Human Factors Working Group
• Interoperability Working Group
• Testing Working Group

See Also:  VVSG Public Working Group (PWG) Lists

Public Working Group Guidance

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Voting Program focuses on the development of community-based guidelines, metrics, and guidelines that inform the development of the Election Assistance Commission's (EAC) Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG). This effort is undertaken in partnership with interested Federal, commercial, and private sector parties through the formation of public working groups. The key provisions for forming and managing these working groups are summarized below:

Formation and Scope: Public working groups are established by the NIST Voting Program to pursue its goals for informing the development of a new version of the VVSG through a combined public-private effort. Input from government, commercial, and academic sector individuals and entities is considered by the Program in evaluating the formation or dissolution of a public working group, including its initial and continuing scope and tasking.

Constituency vs. Election Cycle Groups: Constituency groups are for development of guidance or deliverables that may inform the election cycle groups. In addition constituency group members will meet to discuss the activities of each election cycle group to help ensure each constituency group's interests are covered throughout the process. The election cycle groups will take input from the constituency groups so as to develop or inform requirements development for consideration by the EAC's Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC).

Membership: Participation in a public working group is open and free to all interested parties; there are no membership fees.

Leadership: Public working groups are led by NIST and EAC staff acting as Chairs and/or Vice-Chairs along with designated members.

Liaisons: To promote coordination among the working groups, individual Groups may designate liaisons to one or more other groups as needed.

Sub-groups: Each public working group may create one or more sub-groups to focus on a specific task and an associated deliverable. Any deliverables or recommendations of the sub-group are advisory only to the parent working group. Sub-groups are dissolved at the completion of their tasking or at any time upon the direction of the parent working group.

Sub-group Leadership: The heads of sub-groups - "Leaders" and/or "Co-Leaders" - are designated by the Chair or Vice-Chair of the parent working group from among the working group membership based on knowledge and interest in the sub-group tasking.

Meeting Frequency: Each working group will establish its own schedule for meetings and teleconferences.

Products: The products of working groups prepared at the direction of NIST and EAC staff and/or its designated representatives are subject to NIST and EAC review and are intended for public release at NIST's discretion.

No Proprietary Information Exchanged

All information exchanged within the working group will be non-proprietary. Working group members should assume that all materials exchanged will be made public.

Standing Rules

• All documents shall be made available to all working group members.
• For some meetings, a queueing system will be used to facilitate participation. For discussions, the moderator will establish a queue and each participant in the queue will be allocated time to speak on a topic. Time allocated per person will set by the moderator.
• For some meetings, outside of discussion periods all participants will be muted. To request an opportunity to address the group, the participant will use the teleconferencing system chat feature to indicate a request to speak.
• This a moderated, public forum, not a consensus standards committee. As such, there is no official voting on requirements for consensus for any given topic. This forum allows NIST to gather technical input from the voting standards community to help ensure that our recommendations to the Election Assistance Commission are as well-considered as possible.
• NIST reserves the right to block individuals from participating in the working group if they do not abide by the working groups' basic rules of etiquette. While, in general, up to two warnings can be issued prior to anyone being blocked from participation, it is up to the sole discretion of the moderator and working group chair.
• Participants blocked from the calls and the mailing list may still provide input to NIST on voting standards by sending written comments to working group chair.

Etiquette

• Be respectful of other working group members. Ensure your comments are on topic, relevant, and accurate. Do not berate others for their views or prevent others from participating by repeatedly providing the same input. Refrain from profane, sexually explicit, threatening, or otherwise offensive language.
• State concisely and clearly the specific topic of the comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
• Only send a message to the entire list when it contains information that everyone can benefit from.
• Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals, not to the entire list. Do this by using your e-mail application's forwarding option and typing in or cutting and pasting in the e-mail address of the individual to whom you want to respond.
• Do not send administrative messages, e.g., "remove me from the list", to the mailing list. Instead, use the links on this page to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list.
• This working group is not a place to sell products or to provide a platform for individuals to repeatedly convince others of a specific point of view.
• NIST does not discriminate against any views, however, we do reserve the right to block participants who send messages that:
  • Are violent, obscene, profane, hateful or racist
  • Are sexually explicit or sexually harassing
  • Threaten, harass, or defame any person or organization
  • Spread misleading or false information/accusations
  • Are inappropriate or offensive
  • Are irrelevant or off-topic
  • Suggest or encourage illegal activity
  • Are copied and pasted multiple times
  • Solicit, advertise or endorse any financial, commercial or nongovernmental agency

In short: Please be respectful of others. Do not abuse the privilege of participating in our public, family-friendly forums -- users who do risk being blocked from general participation.