US Election Assistance Commission - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines Vote
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Section CommentsGeneral CommentsGlossary Comments
 
Name :   Sanford Morganstein
Organization :   Populex Corporation
Post Date :   8/26/2005

Section Comments
Section :  6.4.4.11
Page no. :  13
Line no.:  6
Comment :  Discussion:
We believe that other sections of the VVSG make clear that this section is not
intended to require vendors to provide copies of source code of third party
software. However, we do not believe that this is unambiguous, since the Glossary mentions “executable” code in the context of “Voting System
Software” and not “third party Software.” Source code is simply not available
for all software included in a voting system. “Software,” in its most general
interpretation, exists in voting systems in places that may not be obvious:
from keyboard firmware to touch screen position interpreters to embedded
printer firmware, to smart card readers, to the computer BIOS and boot
ROM, etc. Vendors of such hardware components simply do not make their
code, source or executable, available.