Neal McBurnett - Vice-Chair, IEEE P1622 Voting Systems Electronic Data Interchange Project
Member, OASIS Election Services Working Group (EML) EVN 2012-03-30
neal@mcburnett.org - http://neal.mcburnett.org
IEEE P1622 committee: http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1622/
NIST page on P1622: http://www.nist.gov/itl/vote/ieee-swg-p1622.cfm
OASIS Election Services working group (EML): http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/election
(Disclaimer: my view of active work in progress - stay tuned)
Benefits of a long-term perspective
Data formats: essentially the language of computers and networks
The Internet itself is based on a core language for how different computers, on different kinds of networks from different vendors can all simply talk to each other, and share formats. E.g. names for mailboxes, like "neal@mcburnett.org" or computers, like electionverification.org and google.com.
Compare that with instant messaging. Wide variety of systems that don't talk to each other: Google Talk, AIM, IRC, etc. Frustrating.
Look at how it applies to some of our problems:
Election reporting and auditing: easy with the right data!
Quality (e.g. undervotes and overvotes )- picture Sarasota or Bronx with election-night coverage of residual vote
Costs of election systems - St Charles, MO refusal to buy given just one vendor
Unfriendly, unusable, expensive ballot design and programming
Voter registration data sharing between states
Court battles to get data that vendors claim is proprietary
Testing voting systems - want interoperability standards and standard test suites
Internet voting vs Blank Ballot Delivery
Facilitating election forensics, making event logs more accessible, usable, and secure
Given a standard, expect free translation tools to move data to and from existing systems.
Increased opportunity for cooperation between jurisdictions
Vision of a world with a widely used election data format - a Language of Democracy!
Please participate in standards, or make sure your interests are well represented
My short term goals:
Ensure that Pew and IEEE use same format for Voter Registration - avoid extra work for states
Help get good election reporting and auditing draft standards in place for early adopters this fall, finish in 2013.