US Election Assistance Commission - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines Vote
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Section CommentsGeneral CommentsGlossary Comments
 
Name :   Stanley A. Klein
Organization :   N/A
Post Date :   9/30/2005

General Comments
Comment :  The draft VVSG makes a few important improvements, primarily in usability, an area missing
from previous standards (FEC 1990 and 2002). However, in the very important areas of
reliability, security, integrity, and trustworthiness, this draft VVSG is so loaded with loopholes
and weak or unenforced requirements to make it mostly a facade covering a hollow, meaningless
core. Being the third such document over 15 years with ample time having passed for correction
of mistakes and improvement of requirements, the VVSG now appears clearly intended to allow
voting administrators to – knowingly or unknowingly – make the false claim that their voting
systems have been “rigorously tested to the highest standards.”
Voting is the most critical and fundamental process of a democratic society, a process from
which "the consent of the governed" and thereby all governmental authority is derived. Voting
systems must be required, designed, tested, operated, monitored, and certified to be reliable,
accurate, secure, usable, and auditable. Systems should be so designed that errors and
malfunctions are recoverable, that any malicious tampering is both detectable and recoverable,
and that ordinary citizens are fully capable of understanding, observing, and knowledgeably
participating in all processes and procedures necessary to ensure these attributes.
The American people have good reason to become deeply alarmed about the serious
unreliability, insecurity, and general untrustworthiness of the voting systems through which they
participate in the fundamental act of citizenship. This draft VVSG does little to make voting
systems reliable, secure, or trustworthy and mainly provides a facade allowing false claims that
voting systems have been tested to proper standards.