Development of High Level Guidelines for UOCAVA voting systems

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Development of High Level Guidelines for UOCAVA
voting systems

• Andrew Regenscheid
• National Institute of Standards and Technology
• http//vote.nist.gov

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Background (1)

• EAC tasked TGDC with the development of
  guidelines for testing and certifying of
  electronic absentee voting systems.
• TGDC established UOCAVA Working Group.
• The UOCAVA Roadmap submitted to Congress by the
  EAC calls for the development of high-level
  non-testable guidelines for remote electronic
  absentee voting systems by Spring 2011.

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Background (2)

• EAC/NIST/FVAP UOCAVA Roadmap
• EAC and the TGDC, with technical support from
  NIST, and input from FVAP, will identify
  high-level, non-testable guidelines for remote
  electronic absentee voting systems. This effort
  will focus on the desirable characteristics of
  such systems and serve as a needs analysis for
  future pilots and research and for the purposes
  of driving industry to implement solutions.

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Approach (1)

• Identified Council of Europe recommendations,
  Legal, Operational and Technical Standards for
  E-Voting, as starting point.
• Included legal and procedural items out-of-scope
  for our purposes.
• Lacked comprehensive security, usability and
  accessibility guidelines.
• The CoE recommendations were reviewed and a
  subset of the recommendations were extracted.
• Recommendations related to election
  administration, election law, and instructions
  for election officials were not included.
• Recommendations related to technical aspects of
  design, implementation, and deployment of
  election equipment were included.

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Approach (2)

• The subset of the recommendations were initially
  modified.
• A point was reached where clarity about how the
  high level guidelines would be used was needed
  for the group to move forward.
• The working group asked the EAC to take a pass at
  modifying the subset of the recommendations.
• This resulted in a second document with high
  level guidelines based on VVSG, Pilot Testing
  Requirements, Operation BRAVO requirement, SERVE,
  etc.

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Next Steps

• To meet the UOCAVA Roadmap Spring 2011 deadline,
  the EAC and NIST will work to complete the
  document initially provided by the EAC while the
  working group focuses on other activities.

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What Now (1)

• David Wagner suggested focusing on differences
  between polling place and remote voting systems.
• Some areas unlikely to need substantially new
  requirements.
• Core requirements
• Software requirements
• Usability
• Other areas may need substantial changes.
• Security
• Accessibility

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What Now (2)

• We can develop testable requirements in a
  piecemeal fashion.
• Some areas are ripe for guidelines development.
• Electronic voter authentication
• Communications channel security
• Accessibility
• Other areas will require additional research and
  possibly technological improvement.
• Auditability of remote electronic voting systems
• End-point security

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Proposed Resolution (1)

• High level guidelines for UOCAVA voting systems
• The TGDC requests the EAC and NIST complete the
  high level guidelines for UOCAVA voting systems
  initially started by the UOCAVA working group.
• This responds to the request in the Report to
  Congress on EACs Efforts to Establish Guidelines
  for Remote Electronic Absentee Voting Systems
  for the TGDC to assist the Election Assistance
  Commission in identifying high-level,
  non-testable guidelines for remote electronic
  absentee voting systems.

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Proposed Resolution (2)

• Guidelines development for UOCAVA voting systems
• The TGDC requests the UOCAVA working group begin
  developing guidelines for UOCAVA voting systems
  in key areas where there are significant
  differences between polling place and remote
  voting systems and technology exists to address
  these differences.