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VVSG
Introduction
The
VVSG is a voting systems standard written for the next generation
of voting equipment to be available in the approximate next several
years. It is a complete re-write of the Voluntary Voting System
Guidelines (VVSG) of 2005 and contains new and expanded material
in many areas, including reliability and quality, usability and
accessibility, security, and testing. The requirements are more
precise, more detailed, and written to be more clear to voting
system manufacturers and test laboratories, which has been lacking
in previous versions of the voting systems standards. The language
throughout is written to be readable and usable by other audiences
as well, include election
officials, legislators, voting system procurement officials,
various voting interest organizations and researchers, and the
general public at large.
The
VVSG will be used by voting system manufacturers and voting system
test labs. Manufacturers will refer to the requirements in the
VVSG when they design and build new voting systems; the requirements
will inform them in how voting systems should perform or be used
in certain types of elections and voting environments. Test labs
will refer to the VVSG when they develop test plans for verifying
whether the voting systems have indeed satisfied the requirements.
The VVSG, therefore, serves as a very important, foundational
tool for ensuring that the voting systems used in U.S. elections
will be secure, reliable, and easier for all voters to use accurately.
The
VVSG is described as "Voluntary" and a "Guideline"
because individual states and U.S. territories purchase their
own voting systems and use them according to state and territory-specific
laws and procedures; the Federal Government cannot dictate how
elections are to be run. The vast majority of states and territories,
however, now require that their voting systems conform to the
requirements in the VVSG. Therefore, the VVSG can be considered
for all intents and purposes as a standard and not voluntary.
The VVSG is titled as "Recommendations to the EAC" because
it is not yet the final version that voting systems manufacturers
and test labs will follow. The Technical Guidelines Development
Committee (TGDC), a committee authorized under the HELP America
Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, and researchers at the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) have written the VVSG for the
Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The EAC will make the VVSG
available to the public for a series of public reviews, and after
consideration of the comments, will issue a final version and
subsequently require its use. Until that occurs, voting system
vendors and test labs will continue to use the VVSG 2005 and its
requirements.
The
VVSG is intended primarily as a critical reference document for:
-
Designers and manufacturers of voting systems;
-
Test labs performing the analysis and testing of voting systems
in support of the national certification process;
-
Software repositories designated by the national certification
authority or by a state; and
-
Test labs and consultants performing the state certification
of voting systems.
The
VVSG contains the following sections:
-
Part 1, Equipment Requirements: for requirements that pertain
specifically to voting equipment.
-
Part 2, Documentation Requirements: for documentation requirements
that must be satisfied by both vendors and test labs – the
Technical Data Package, user documentation, test lab reports,
etc.
-
Part 3, Testing Requirements: information and requirements about
testing; the approaches to testing that will be used by test
labs; the types of tests that will be used to test conformance
to the requirements in Parts 1 and 2.
- Appendix
A, Definition of Words with Special Meaning in the VVSG: covers
terminology used in requirements and informative language.
- Appendix
B, References: contains references to documents and on-line
document used in the writing of this standard.
A
separate volume of tests will accompany the VVSG in the future.
The VVSG contains descriptions for test
methods and general protocols for how requirements are to
be tested, but does not contain the actual tests themselves.
The
following sections contain further introductory and background
material, with an overview of the document structure, its high-level
contents, the history of the voting system standards, and how
to read the document.
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