during welcome to today's hearing on voting machines will the new standards and guidelines help prevent future problems first a little a few things to get out of the way we have a unanimous members wasn't has been recognized for the initial round of questions under the five minute rule the presiding chairman men use discretion to ensure orderly and balanced recognition based upon time of arrival and seniority as may be appropriate under the circumstances without objection so order so ordered now having taken care of that but a business to organize and the meeting of the joint committees i just want to do a brief explanation of procedure for the witnesses and the members an audience we are likely to have a vote on the floor very very soon and the bells will ring and we will have to go vote i'm hoping it will be only one vote in which case we probably can go to the floor vote and be back within fifteen minutes if there is a series of votes it will be longer and i beg your for burn strength that time that will certainly do it as expeditiously as possible and i also am very hopeful that we will not have another fording systems guidelines my main objective in holding this hearing is to discuss how voting technology standards can help us come closer to two very important goals first that every citizen knows that their vote is being accurately counted and second that every citizen knows that their vote is not being diluted by legal or improper votes at this hearing i look forward to hearing testimony  witnesses who may help us understand how voting equipment standards and testing can help improve the accuracy and security of the country's voting systems and prevent errors in thought the new voluntary voting system guidelines were developed pursuant to the requirements of the help america vote act two thousand and two or haven't and it was a science committee in the house administration committee that wrote the language requiring the federal technical guidelines so the technical part of the have a bill originated in this committee and it was also very much a joint minority majority effort as i recall mr brush it was the ranking member at that effecting number panel chaired by the director of the national institute of standards and technology better known as nest and the director is present to offer testimony but t j did recommend standards to the election assistance commission e h c which approves the voluntary standards after review and put from a have a stablished standards board and a board of advisors composed of federal state and local election officials it sounds like an income present support alphabet soup but the system of the cumbersome was designed to provide input and action from experts in the field from all different areas ranging from the smallest timeship in the country to the largest manufacturers the first set of standards under hava known as the voluntary voting systems guidelines were approved by the an important step in improving voting standards but the utility of the guidelines in ensuring honest and fair elections were only be demonstrated by the adoption and implementation in the states nest still needs to approve test protocols at companies that will certify furring systems meet the guidelines i look forward to hearing from our witnesses how the guidelines will be used by states in the selection and use of when we can expect nist to complete certification of the testing companies are hearing today should give us a better understanding of our passage in applying the standards as well as the efforts underway to facilitate their adoption another important issue with regard to voting standards is the ability to update the guidelines as circumstances change and technologies evolve in the event that the guidelines are updated some existing equipment may fall out of compliance with the updated regulations we need to understand what impact these updates will have on equipment ready for me already in use and what guidance the a c will offer the states in assessing this impact and helping them deal with the matters we were just discussed today our technical in nature and while they may be complicated the underlying question is a simple one how will the new standards improve the integrity and accuracy of our voting systems as the name suggests the help america vote act was and acted to help our citizens exercise their right to vote technology can help a said vance that go on that it must be deployed with a proper standards standards that take into account the human factors that will determine whether or not real people the voters will be able to use a technology with ease and confidence other objective is to ensure that every person who is eligible to vote is able to do so with the assurance that their vote will be accurately counted and that their vote will not be nullified by fraud i would like to thank eyewitnesses for offering their insight into these issues as we continue to improve our voting systems and processes and be acting behalf of all americans not just one last one of the quick comment i noticed a number of members in the audience wearing t shirts demonstrating their support for a paper trail that is a very important issue it is not likely to be addressed today unless some of the witnesses bring it up but i have discussed wit have i am trying to arrange a hearing separate hearing on the paper trail presumably sometime in september we had too much to do a reading in this hearing without having to deal with that separate issue which is complex and important and i chairman and i too would like to join you in welcoming all of the expect witnesses on those who are participating but that's in the audience and others today it's great to see you all here as we plagued past elections this issue was clearly brought to light during the two thousand presidential election in florida as part of hava the a c was tasked with updating the voluntary voting system guidelines which were promulgated by the new diff now the defunct f e c office of election administration the ac worked in tandem with the national institute of standards and technology and the tech and technical guidelines development committee to address computerized voting equipment as well as standards the media has focused much of its attention in the l years on the perceived problems with direct recording electronic d r voting machines as well as calls for a voter verifiable paper audit trail the pac the ac was tasked by hava to determine if there are actual vs perceived problems with the paperless d r e voting machines and recommend standards for states that have decided to implement the pac chief functions and determining these standards will be the testing certification decertification and read certification a voting system hardware and software to that in e s c hurried public opinion on the voting system guidelines received over six thousand five hundred comments from the public and incorporated elements of these comments and to the election management guideline project elections today are not the same as they were two hundred years ago not even sixty years ago we are moving to a more technologically driven world and we need comprehensive standards to reflect these changes states may decide to adopt the voluntary voting system guidelines in their entirety or in part by it to the effective date of december two thousand and seven however we are hopeful that all states will implement these standards during a hearing held by our committee in july of two thousand and four bricked williams kennesaw state university professor of computer science on this concept as we are in the midst of the two thousand and six election cycle i intend to ask about one of hubbard's mandates for states which require that each polling station be quipped with at least one machine that is fully accessible to the individuals with disabilities that mandate became effective january first of this year one way states may satisfy this obligation it's with the use of d r boating equipment now are all states going to be compliant before this upcoming november election that is yet to be determined the ari machines were at one point thought to be the great panacea to the problems associated with the two thousand election but much concern has continued to brew since the enactment of prop up these voluntary voting system got lines will be directly affecting the way elections are conducted so i look forward to the hearing today from the panel of experts about voting machines and the hearing and to hear their answers to such questions as will they be secure while still allowing for people with a disability to vote without assistance and in private and mr chairman i'm very pleased that you have suggested that we will have a hearing sometimes in the near future on the paper trail when i had my off we all had weeks off here a couple weeks ago i heard from an oval whelming amount of constituents on the paper trail issue and i think it is important that we bring this to the forefront so americans across this nation can hear our thoughts on a paper trail so i thank the two chairmen for convening this hearing and i look forward to the testimony that this is just being panel to answer those questions some of which i praise thank and to this committee and unfortunately is chosen to retire he will be honored today in retirement reception that congressman boehlert from new york has done yeoman's service and i think frankly chairman is recognized for his opening state thank you very much mr chairman and i have to observe it the outset that we have the entire congressional physics caucus with us here today in the di second i want to join the chairman in welcoming everyone to the six drug nearly important hearing alexion zero i v asli the keystone of our entire democratic system if elections are not seen as legitimate the entire american system unravels but making sure that election results are credible is a tricky year and more technical matter than first appears to be the case for those standards that's not the part of the law that got the most attention but it may prove to be the most important part of the law for the future of american democracy i say that because as the nation moves to electronic voting systems that is two computers which is a good trend on the whole the kinds of things that can go wrong with voting machines may become harder to recognize harder to fix and harder to prevent i'm referring him mostly to unintentional problems but security issues become more complex as well over the long run newer voting machines are going to acquire clear comprehensive technical standards and testing to ensure that election results are credible in the shut r i think we also need to require paper trails even though they have their own problems to ensure that election results can be checked i think oh scuse me i think all of us need to pay close attention to the testimony that will be offered today by dr wagner and to his recommendations for making that electronic voting machines make voting more accurate and more secure not the opposite i'm not indorsing all the recommendations at this point but i am going to want to hear from each of our witnesses what they think of each of dr wagner's recommendations and i don't simply want to hear that their recommendations will be expensive how much is american democracy worth as a nation we ought to be willing to invest in election equipment that's as much an election equipment as we invest in campaign ads frankly we in congress haven't invested this message as we should in the development of the new standards which have been delayed as a result i'm not happy to learn that new standards are not likely to be fully enforceable until twenty ten at the earliest and that's only in states that choose to adopt them i have to say that i had wanted the help america vote act to require any state using federal money to purchase voting equipment to abide by the standards but we weren't able to get that language into the bill but we have now is an entirely voluntary system and we need to make sure that it works i hope that today our committees get clear guidance on what needs to be done to ensure that comprehensive standards get developed to ensure that those standards are capable of preventing problems with electronic voting machines and to encourage states to adopt and effectively implement those standards and once again let me say if we're going to spend taxpayer dollars to develop federal standards i think we should require the states that want to access those federal dollars should meet those standards i'm not enamored with the concept that they voluntarily can choose to comply that's what is necessary to have credible election results in the future the s a s e b white once define democracy as the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people i write more than half of the time that makes democracy a pretty fragile construct to begin with but it's an unremarkable idea if we can't accurately count what half of the people i thinking i look forward to today's testimony and i thank you mr chairman for the cards and i thank you for your comments and before we go to the next person i just want to comment on  the ranking member of the science committee i'm pleased to recognize mr gordon for his opening statement thank you mr chairman let me add my welcome to everyone the chair today it's good to see a full house also want to welcome our friends and colleagues from the house to welcome our distinguished guests today who are going to be speaking to us in that position where being there for speaker most of it has been said i haven't said it and i'm going to leave it that way and just quickly say that as my friend chairman burton pointed out the town day should be democracy is a feeling among its people that once the election is over with you were treated fair and square and that you can go home be upset maybe that your candidate didn't win but you can be a part of the loyal opposition the process can move forward until the next election when you don't have that as we're seeing in mexico right now problems  recently concerns have developed in our country about that level of being fair and square whether it is intentional or unintentional unintentional and so i hope that today hearings will help us to move forward i have to say that i'm disappointed that we are behind schedule and i do not see obviously much taking place in two thousand and six maybe not even two thousand and eight we need to move  forward the need to be transparency there needs to be credibility in this process and we need to move on with it so thank you and hopefully this hearing today will allow us to do so thank you jim for a statement i do have good news to tell it would be interrupted by votes before this but fortunately the managers of the action on the house floor have taken up three suspensions which will postpone votes perhaps to the point where we can finish the hearing that remains to be seen mr chairman i would like to thank you for the courtesy of taking part in this and i appreciate you calling the hearing i would like to ask  consent to put at this point in the record a state a written statement which will make the basic point that the subject of today's hearing standards for design and certification i good but not sufficient and that one needs audit ability and require and it required audit process as well and i will have to excuse myself that some point soon for an intelligence committee hearing but i thank the gentleman the chairman for his courtesy  a pleasure to find out that there's some intelligence in the congress already i will make the general statement if there are members who wish to submit additional statements or statements will be added to the record without objection ordered the first time i'd like to introduce eyewitnesses we have an excellent panel we thank you very much for coming here first we have done that a davidson commissioner of the election assistance commission and the member of the of standards and technology and chair of the technical guidelines development committee next i recognize as a member of this committee the gentleman from minnesota mr goulden like to introduce our third mary she is minnesota's twentieth secretary of state she was first elected in one thousand nine hundred eighty and was reelected in two thousand and two she was also the former president of the national associations of sec trades secretaries of state and she has been very active in the election assistance commission standards board mary takes her job extremely seriously and i don't know of anybody in elective office who works harder than mary kate meyer minnesota has a reputation for clean elections and  and i am with the elections assistance commission as a result of the help america vote act about one third of our voters will be voting on new equipment in two thousand and six  requirements that all voting systems and must meet the law also mandated that e s c adopt voluntary voting system guidelines the t g c delivered guidelines within the nine months and at that time prior to our gaap sion we helped three public meetings received and reviewed over six thousand five hundred comments and had a very transparent process the states have always been the decision makers when it comes to making the decision on what equipment they're being used of a did not change that as been stated before the p b s g was and then ishall update to the two thousand and two voting system standards that was in place we focused mainly on security usability accessability created a usability section addressing the needs of all voters empowering them to adjust voting systems to improve interaction the e s c and nist already are working on future iterations software runs of independent verification security comprehensive test s the mean time between failure rate detail threat analysis for voting systems album mandates the e s c are also certified voting systems against new guidelines the ac has just adopted  first phase of the program for testing and certifying of voting systems the program will be more rigorous transparent thurl than ever before we will have to remember that voting systems is only half of the equation though voting is a human exercise we must focus on the protecting the integrity of the whole process just not the machine the bottom line is the voting equipment whether it is paper or electronic is only as good as the operator attempts to compromise a voting system requires two things access and knowledge of the voting system that's why election officials must adopt matchbook guidelines to make sure that we protect the process all the way talking about training the e s c is already developed a quick start that we have here today for everybody that will give the individuals in the states ideas and make sure that they follow procedures to make sure that they address everything in a new voting system the larger part we will be issuing election management guidelines that will cover the following topics security protocol all phases set up story transportation election day pos election archiving our logic and accuracy testing tabulation training of employees and coworkers as a former secretary of state i could tell you that regardless of what kind of voting equipment that is in place some things never change and show access having enough people to work in the polls and making sure those people are well trained catching the equipment and testing the quitman putting contingency plans into place voting systems and people are not mutually exhibit exclusive we must keep that in mind as we move forward to make sure that the next generation of voted equipment is secure accurate and reliable thank you and i'd be happy to answer any questions at the time and thank you very much for sleeping well below the front of my jeffery jarman ranking members and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify today on voting machines will the new standards and guidelines help prevent future problems and william jeffrey director the national institute of standards and technology and i'm pleased to be offered this opportunity to participate in today's discussion list works closely with the election assistance commission by providing technical support directly to them and to the technical guidelines development committee or t g c mist is pleased to be working on this matter of national importance with our e s c and t g c partners today our focus on eating the requirements of the help america vote act of two thousand and two including development of voluntary guidelines for voting systems and laboratory accreditation of assigned three major responsibilities first develop a report to assess areas of human factors research to ensure the usability and accuracy of the thing systems second chair and provide technical support to the t and third recommend testing laboratories to the e c for accreditation we believe that we have met or are on track to meeting these three responsibilities first in january two thousand and four and this completed the report which just areas of human factors research recommendations from this report are being addressed in the voting system guidelines to ensure the usability and accuracy of voting systems second  and providing technical support to the t g c which is developing new voluntary voting system guidelines for consideration by the e c either mandated that the first sat recommendations be delivered to the e c nine months after the formal creation of the t g c to meet this incredibly aggressive schedule missed and the t g c conducted workshops meetings and numerous teleconferences to gather input pos resolutions and review missed authored materials this was done in a fully transparent process with meetings conducted in public and dropped materials available on the web the resulting document was delivered on schedule to the e c in may of two thousand and five these new guidelines are built upon the strengths of the previous voting system standards and hansen areas needing improvement and adding new material the new material focuses primarily on usability accessibility and security the new section on security includes the first federal standard for voter verified paper audit trails the new voluntary guidelines takes no position regarding the implementation of such paper audit trails and neither requires nor is states choose to implement the voted for a five paper audit trails the new voluntary guidelines provide requirements that will help to ensure that their systems are usable accessible reliable and secure the new security section also contains requirements for addressing both a system software distribution validation of software used on election day and wireless communications immediately after completing its work  version but takes a fresh look at many of the requirements ios seven guidelines will review every section of the current standard and will consider inclusion of additional requirements as identified by the t next is aware that in addition to the zero seven voluntary guidelines and open tests we need to be developed so that the requirements in the new standard can be tested uniformly and consistently by all of the testing labs suite development is planned began in fiscal year two thousand and seven the third task that nist is given under harper is recommending testing laboratories to the e i c for accreditation simply stated laboratory accreditation is formal recognition that laboratory is competent to carry out specific tests this is using its national voluntary laboratory accreditation program to accomplish this task that's far we have received applications from five labs and are working to submit the qualified labs to the e c for accreditation in early two thousand and seven thank you for the opportunity to testify and i would be happy to answer any questions of the committee might baylor two members thank you for the opportunity to address the u s house of representatives committees on house administration a committee on science the opportunity from the committee to the needs of the states regarding voting machines will the new standards and guidelines help prevent future problems is very highest standards of accuracy access integrity and privacy so the implementation of hava has only helped to assist in this process in the implementation of hava and minnesota access and privacy are being greatly increased through the use of disability accessible voting equipment in the process of evaluating potentially quitman accuracy and integrity were deemed important objectives along with the two thousand and five e s d in addition to secretary of state and all major parties came to the conclusion that minnesota should hold to a long established requirement of paper ballots for elections to what extent are these guidelines being used for minnesota and why minnesota chose to use a two thousand and five voluntary voting system guidelines in order to be in line with the best information we could get on election systems in two accessibility and usability requirements for these devoting equipment and the r f p required that all equipment purchased under the contract comply with the two thousand and five e s d at the time the arab peoples published the two thousand and five e d s she were not yet adopted therefore the final record contract required that the voting equipment vendor would be responsible for bringing the system into compliance with the b d s gee upon final adoption by the e c minnesota state plan also called for the state to make grants to counties from how the funds for the purchase of this equipment companies were required to be fair plans that they would purchase with this grandsons many counties already had voting tabulating equipment however it was learned the vendor would not  upgrading the older equipment to the two thousand and five e d s she the grantley the state made the choice to permit the use of grant funds to replace its older equipment with the intent to bring all the owning equipment in the state up to the two thousand and five e standards finally due to security concerns raised during the comment period for the adoption of the two thousand and five e d s g t it was decided in the interest of minnesota voters who shared these concerns for security that minnesota would only permit the use of paper ballots in its  s there are statutes were amended into the two thousand and six legislative session implementing district paper ballot requirement either the d s t comprehensive enough in two thousand and five guidelines to purchasing decisions know the security standards of the two thousand and five d s t are not sufficiently comprehensive to ensure security in our election systems the use of technology for voting increases the risk that security the voting system will be breached if proper safeguards are not taken and i believe that more comprehensive treatment in two areas alone would increase confidence in electronic voting systems first is the use of wireless components because of concerns with wireless components in the polling place wireless component should only be turned on after the polls close in voting is complete or strict security guidelines are developed also to provide for maximal trust and election systems in the united states i believe that a vote of verified paper audit trail should be highly considered required in the p t s d in minnesota i'm pleased to say we have the ultimate voter verified paper trail the actual ballots that the voters have marked this standard will help provide assurance that the elections process is being conducted in an accurate and fair as far as it goes but it needs to be evaluated after the next election to see how the equipment functioned and what would be better any necessary modifications need to be made with an emphasis on software changes and hardware security changes first the cost of implementing new hardware could be a burden on the taxpayers and should be avoided if at all possible so what do these t t c need to do to make it more likely that states will update the equipment time is an issue the next  galley with the current system and propose improvements to study the effectiveness in the conduct of a lot since we will be able to have more information to make the improvements necessary in the next version caution should be given to large capital expenditures that would waste today's money and human factors are extremely important and i have sufficient testimony as well that is written today that i can submit seeing my time has concluded thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today y one of the things i think everyone needs to remember when we're talking about the issue that's before the committee today that voting process is really a four pronged and a very large enterprise now you have the voting equipment in place and that seems to be the focus of a lot of people you also have to have an examination of the processes that surround the election the security which is a huge issue in maryland and of course all the people and one of the things that concerns me about some of the dialogue that is occurring around the country not necessarily here is that we tend to lose focus on the huge number of absolutely wonderful people that we have working in elections across the country from people like me i'm not that wonderful but people like in my position down to my i employ the county people the town people and most importantly the poll workers and they are very important pong to this process and we need to make sure that they feel like they're a part of it and i welcome part of it the other part of this whole thing of course is also the voters what are we doing to make sure that they feel confident that we're doing our job well and not trying to undermine their confidence i think a lot of the discussion is tending to do you've heard from three of my distinguished colleagues about some of the issues with the guidelines i think one of the most important things we need to remember is that this is an evolution is not a simple step to improve the process in maryland we started in two thousand and one with the general assembly in maryland passing a law requiring a uniform statewide voting system and it is say can me until this year to fully implement that lot with baltimore city becoming the last years diction though in the fall this year every voter in maryland always voting on touch screen voting the amount of money that it has taken me in the state of maryland implement that decision at the general assembly is huge not only do i have over fifty million dollars invested in the voting system i have many many more manes invested in security procedures security processes that we necessarily have to take to ensure the integrity of this voting system if for some reason the existing system that we have in maryland is not compliant with any future guidelines issued by and my general assembly so that's something that we all have to keep in in the back of our minds when we're when we're walking about this and a lot of the other states are going to be in the same position georgia has a statewide system they use the same with them than i do and a lot of the large lot of the counties are out there purchasing perhaps purchase for this upcoming fall elections because they had to under the help america vote act i would just like and i know it's going to come up some i will hit it right on the head on a verified hope paper trail has for me two main issues one it's going to stifle and it already has to some extent the development of any other kind of independent verification technologies i have seen some things out there that are still prototypes that i would love to see go on to the market because they would provide me with all kinds of wonderful tools as well as providing a way to audit and verify the vote in the election the other thing that has me greatly concerned about it is its impact on the disabled voters particularly those with vision problems or all of the blind voters they have no way of verifying how or can't read because they can't i think in this debate we need to keep them in our minds because we certainly have done everything we can and maryland to reach out to this population security and electronic voting in my research into electronic voting i have come to the conclusion that the fed standards process is not working the federal testing labs are failing to weed out machines with serious security and well the state of california my home state does its own reliability testing using a methodology that's more rigorous then occurs at any level of federal testing and when the state of california went to test one federally approved system last year they discovered mechanical and software reliability problems so severe that if those machines had been used in a real election on election day twenty percent of those machines would have failed fortunately california is on top of things and was able to been able to detect and fix these problems before they impact an election but it raises questions about how the testing labs came to approve a system like this also the federal testing labs  know are approving machines that have security problems we know that because finnish researcher harry hursti an outsider has found secure serious security vulnerabilities in federally approve systems and my own research when i was commissioned to analyze one federally approving system i too found security vulnerabilities that the federally federal testing labs had overlooked so i'm sure the testing labs aren't getting the job done and what's more so far the federal standards even the two thousand and five federal standards have yet to address these problems so that's the first of several shortcomings in the federal centers that i wanted to highlight today the second is that it's my opinion that the standards are not sufficiently grounded in a solid understanding of the scientific and engineering principles there's a broad consensus among the technical experts who studied these issues that today the best tool we have for protecting the reliability and security of our elections is the use of a voter verified paper records along with routine manual audits of those records we know that computers can fail we know that computers can make mistakes and part of the problem with paperless voting machines is that they don't provide any independent way to go back and reconstruct the voter's intent if voting software should prove faulty or be tampered with this is not a minority opinion for instance recently the brennan center in collaboration with a large group of technical experts and election officials has completed a comprehensive  hundred fifty page analysis of some of the threats facing voting systems their conclusion was that without a go to verified paper records a single person may be able to switch votes on a large scale possibly undetected and potentially even swing a close election so today i don't know of a single colleague in the computer security community who believes it's possible to have full confidence in election outcomes without paper given our current state of our voting equipment however this consensus among technical experts has yet to be reflected in the federal voting standards so this is one example and there are many others of how the federal standards are lagging behind the best scientific and engineering understanding the consequence of these shortcomings is that the federal standards are not sufficient to guarantee that federally approved voting systems are able to adequately protect the integrity of our elections either against unintentional failures or against deliberate tampering i see that i've used up most of my allocated time there were a number of other points i want to make in my written testimony i have discussed some of the steps that the e c could take to remedy these problems in the short term as well as some measures that election officials could take before these november elections to help as much as possible and i would welcome the chance to discuss this topic further with the com and i'm a senior vice president with election systems and software one of the voting system vendors in the united states i'm here to provide testimony on the part on behalf of the information technology association of america and its selection technology council which is a subset group ita is one of the oldest the nation's oldest and largest trade associations for the information technology industry representing approximately three hundred twenty five companies the election technology council consists of companies which offer voting system technology hardware products software services to support the electoral process these companies have organized within ita to work together to address conduct and the outcome of this process indeed voting solutions provided and supported by our members account for ninety percent of the vote the systems the marketplace uses today our members employ over two thousand dedicated citizen employees who work hard to support the successful american elections e t c is pleased to respond to requests for vendor perspective on the issues surrounding the implementation of the two thousand and five voluntary voting system guidelines and the national governing system certification testing process my written testimony is much longer but i would like to provide if you detailed responses to specific issues first i would like to acknowledge the very strong partnership in alliance that the vendor community has with to put an organizational leaders in this area the united states election systems commission and the national institute of standards and technology as well as the technical guidelines development committee both of these groups should be commended for the focus and urgency with which they have moved forward with the voluntary voting system guidelines it's been a tremendous task to do this in a short period of time that was challenged with everyone in this comments on the two thousand and five voting systems guidelines process turning to the specific issues of the v v s g e it is important to first underscore the respect we have the standards making process in our very belief our real belief that a dynamic standards process is key to motivating innovation in continued enhancement of voting technology having said that there are several realities that the voting system vendors believe must be acknowledged that counted for in laying the groundwork for successful rollout of the two thousand and five vv s g issues our members wish to raise to your attention include one the need to consider fiscal and operational feasibility to the impact of certification in testing three the need for continuing funding streams and for the new just for a phased in implementation and we touch first on the cooperation of feasibility there's a discernible trend in the development of the two thousand and five following terry voting system guidelines to push the envelope of the voting system capabilities while vendors can develop and deliver most of what is required in the v v s t such requirements will come at a cost eventual the addition of system features and functions will be constrained by what the market will be willing to pay or able to pay a balance needs a balance needs to be struck between the development of new requirements in future versions of b b s g and the fiscal or an operational realities that the states in the counties in the united states the around election have to deal with second issue on the impact of certification and testing on the guidelines certification and testing will be critical to achieving full compliance with the two thousand and five standards to change federal certification of systems under the two thousand five v v s g by december of two thousand and seven which is the effective date the new certification process will likely need to be in place before the end of this year with a credit testing labs ready to test and test defined for every up like a ball requirement for the two thousand and five guidelines this is an extremely aggressive time line for the vendors as well as many of us sitting at this table first although the voting system features and functions addressed for the first time require the development of a new sort of occasion test some of the two thousand and five voluntary voting system guideline requirements have no test defined to date second once the tests are in place we would have to expect a learning curve and unforseen difficulties associated with the change then some tasks may not prohibitive delays or cause austin certification process and depending on the nature of the problem this may require modification to the guidelines or the testing process itself all of these challenges will require some flexibility as the revised guidelines and certification process are implemented the in the first round of questions and recognize myself for five  at minimum pay for incredibly long hours difficult job and year after year after year and i have the highest respect for them and probably for that reason probably for other reasons when we had the great respect for education but i was so drunk you having people who do something twice a year on average some cases last you can train all you want but they're not going to remember for six months or a year just precisely they have to do you have to design the systems so that the intuitive an operation is self evident and that is that where the term human factors comes in so i have pressed very hard on to what extent have the findings of this report then incorporated into the two thousand and five guidelines and what kinds of guidelines remain to be written thank you sir the two thousand and four report  listed ten major recommendations on human factors and these included things like incorporating the us access forward requirements and suggestions into the record into the guidelines developing performance addressed in the two thousand and seven version and i just like to add to that that is part of those usability requirements are not just for the voters but they also include some usability for testing benchmarks and doing research to update all of the accessibility unusual usability requirements that were contained in two thousand and five thank you mr grunow just to what extent has this better understanding of human factors affect the way the country's companies are designed their equipment and to what extent have you been able to incorporate the human factors into your products well i  think it's been a marked a step approach the first hurdle was to neat and manage and adapt systems that would allow states and counties to get inaccessible voting system accessible voting systems are a difficult hurdle to cross over because no single system will manage every voter with a disability issue that they face but we've attempted to to provide as many of them as we possibly can because the two thousand and five voluntary voting system guidelines were still in development during all of two thousand and five and were not issued until january one or just the january timeframe of zero six we were looking at and waiting for the final draft in the final guidelines to come out and so we have just begun to create the next level of the next wave of acts of accessibility as well as human factors issues with it and we're looking for the performance in the testing criteria because that's what will drive us as to how we build the technology because we wanted to fit within the guidelines and we wanted to pass the testing of thank you very much my graham when you saying that because of the late mr r just recently receiving the standards and whatever you wouldn't now i'm just beginning to divine design or or to look into the software whatever needs to be done in terms of the testing i was kind of talking when i know my question was and drives to the human factors element or human or human interface needs of human interface or is chairman ehlers put out earlier today of nest that would be there and as technology evolves there's new there's new technology that's available today our cell phones that we have in our pockets today from five years ago are greatly different as are voting technologies or voting systems what we focus on initially was an accessibility component of the two thousand and two and the hava requirements because they were known the accessibility and human factors component was not completed in time for us really to effectively apply those in the dishonoring right there well thank you so much but we've heard from all of you or what i've heard from all of you security that's one of the words i've heard from each of you security and then hearing that it is extremely employed nesmith's lamont said that security is a big factor with the people whom we all serve and with those voters who are out there who's depending upon voting machines or whatever the methodology is to have security in their voting given all of this we're also hearing from dr wagner who said and i'm just underscoring all of these different things that i'm hearing the state of electronic voting security it's not good he states that and yet dr jeffrey zients you are you were said to state that the testing labs that you have begun to do or have successfully been done seem to have been or are working toward some successful  conclusion what can we do each of you to ensure that security is for foremost in our voting system voters are very concerned that their vote it's not being counted and that's why they want a paper trail so that they can ensure at least some gee security of their voting well you each answer to me and to us why is it that dr wagner says the electronic voting security is not good and he also that it seems that the federal standards i'm no longer apply campbell and i might be putting some words in your mouth but if you can each respond to that in conclusion stated that they have felt for prongs so this whole notion of voluntary voting standards and the whole notion of voting period and one it's one it's that of people poll workers seventy two and that the training has been very in effective and efficient will you please speak to the security part of this and if by dr wagner's assessment that the federal standards are out of whack or not working what are we going to do in terms of security well thank you very much he thought out there and i would never want calls were here from one laboratories the federal officers do the time testing is completely different and so we're brand new process under the old accreditation process was done by name said which is national association of state election directors thank you that was a phenomenal process that they put into place in terms of being set up by essentially volunteers within the organization with minimal resources and they basically did yeoman's job of getting the first level of accreditation and testing going under the hopper where nist is now involved in helping to do the accreditation labs we're using a very different process a much more rigorous process t t we have within this program called math lab which is why i won't bore you with the acronym but it's a internationally recognized process for testing for having independent testing labs be accredited to have a level of competence to make these kind of tasks give you some examples some of the difference it is under they said when an independent testing lab was accredited it was accredited once and that was good for different is that just the fact of going from the two thousand and two standards to ultimately the two thousand and seven the clarity and precision in those standards are going to be so improved that right now there's a lot of ambiguity which makes testing difficult that's been fixed that's one of the things that specifically been addressed that will help significantly and will help minimize all the problems that were mentioned as well as the open tests we've developed from that everyone has a chance chairman burgess next to recognize for five minutes i'd like to get to be quite basic and i look at the title of the hearing where the new standards and guidelines help prevent future problems i think what we're all looking for and waiting guarantees the integrity of the system i guess by basic question is how can you standards and guidelines which are violent ceri guarantee anything wilma they call a momentary but there's not a vendor that's going to sell a viable product in the united states it's not going to have their system tested against  because most of the states require our voting systems to meet the standards so for the states that don't want to participate their vendors are going to have met and had their equipment tested anyway so i think focusing on the word voluntary is probably not the right what you need to see with and how the states are in because i think most of us are going to hear to them and i know all the vendors well you all agree with that answer you know and then the thing i think that we need to remember is we've been working with the the players the counties the states and so they feel comfortable with those and more i think that they see how useful they are the more that what joy and we have over forty states now that is already in some type of a process but the federal president action with the standards to represent all of the manufacturers one is public opinion is the strongest approach that drives as well as the state election directors and secretaries of state i know of no state that does not demand to require that you have gone through a certification a federal certification process today the one that exists it is under the two thousand and two voluntary voting system standards it will soon be upon us that will be under a new set of standards and a new set of test procedures so for us as this lamond mentioned or stated it's very correct no no no way would we be able to sell to any jurisdiction in the united states something that had not been through the appropriate accreditation in the recognize accreditation process which is inadequate right now as we all know and that's why we got the problems the numerator dr wagner's testimony dr wagner do you agree with what you're hearing i think one problem we have is that even the new two thousand and five standards have significant shortcomings the second problem we have is that there are delays in the standards being adopted the two thousand and five standards will not become will not take effect until two thousand seven and so we can expect to see squat a few years delay until this influences the majority of voting systems used in the us that's those are years wasted let me get right to the heart of another question that was brought up the commentary and dr wagner's actual testimony and the recommendations are to mandate voted for verified paper records and mandatory manual audits sounds pretty good to me geller without a doubt even the state such as minutes out of which has adopted those standards because they were not ready we have complied with them but it's just simply a matter of time until we actually do that but you are exactly right that it is a real issue and it is more a function of time and then it is a lack of willingness of either the vendors or the states to comply with them and i think that's an important recognition come sit the congress the united states and he some of our colleagues tell us repeatedly we don't want government mandates this is wrong and we don't need paper trails and they got some of the vendors that are saying the same thing we don't need paper trails i kind of think it's we need something that's au again we can check to make sure things work their way through intended to work so i gradually needs to have more time but this is what about the paper trail what about all these paper trail recommendations i mean so many you have braced on obviously absolutely karens altered does out a doubt recognizing the reality of the situation we were in today the option for us was to do the the actual law even better than the paper audit trails to do the actual paper ballots because the environment we're in right now today gave us that greatest level security but even there minnesota's chosen to do a source code review we've chosen to post election audits as well because we want to wrap the whole system i mean it is a system there are many components not just the technology not just the box but there are the people skills poll workers very important part of that aspect as well new aggressive training that we're doing in that area as well the procedures and the aggressiveness of you know office working together with the locals to make sure we have that all wrapped up the procedures and all of those things and it is some situation that we have wrapped all of that together that is what we've chosen to minnesota and i wish that we were all in that stage right now but the reality and the facts are that the standards you have lamentation those things are the reality and i think that most have tried to comply with those realities the best way they could at this time but we're not stopping this is not the conclusion we'll come up with a good liars for a paper trail dr wagner we know you're for it because you recommended it was davidson yes you know i was secretary in colorado when we passed paper trail and we had not abt that paper trail with the machine so i i can only speak of myself i'm not speaking as an agency but just so that you know where i really came from you know one thing i'd like to add is when we  c we put in the guidelines specifically for technical hardware we don't make policy calls in terms of what should be implemented but if one doesn't implement the paper trails we put in the guidelines to help ensur systems perform in actual elections for example do you collect information on failure rates and other problems if so how is this information used to improve standards there have been several incidents of security reliability and us ability flaws use covered in the independent testing authority approval and equipment either during elections are during state certification when flaws are uncovered what is a process for ensuring that the same mistakes are not repeated in the future this is a multi part question i'm asking you has the e c published any report or analysis on how or why flaws were not discovered during inspection and testing the probe near professional organization for computing professionals the association of computing machinery surveyed their members about evolving technology ninety five percent of respondents for a position indoors a voter verified paper records and expressing concerns about paperless voting technologies if the computer scientists are concerned about security and reliability of voting machines and recommend that all voting systems produce a vote of verified paper record that can be audited why hasn't the e c taken a stronger position ok let me see if i can start and all of the you know i am sure i won't time that the federal government has had anything to do with the certification process so that's number one and part of our process is yes we do intend to go out and review any type of problem that is in the field whether it is a mechanical problem whether is a software problem or whether it is a you know it just an error by a judge or somebody that program they quit months to really look into what kind of the issues they are and keep a record of what the issues are that is out there because it is you have there it's very true we do not know and i'm sad to say we did not have any background at all and we have not given any  written documents saying what you know those scenarios are because we don't have any any way of even capturing that right now but that's part of our process that will be in place as we get the all of the certifications that come from not blab to us before we certify the independent test authorities but in that process obviously we have decertify for the first time we've never had decertify process before in  in in this type of process so the decertifying will be very important if there's a system that's not working and it is failing one we can notify all of the states that have that equipment we're asking for all the been hers to tell us exactly what they have in every state so that we have a record of each individual type of equipment being used in every jurisdiction of the night and states so that will start our information and knowing what's going on you know i know there's a lot of other questions that go in there that you've asked but it's not very long until the election of two thousand and six i mean that's right around the corner in a couple of months so i like and concerned about this next election and what happens and what happens when you have a machine that goes down during the election i know that the election workers know how to help a person redo their their ballot but i'll give them some assistance but what happens if you have a breakdown of the equipment during an election i mean how do we how do we know what's going to happen and then again the question the last question was will the we take a stronger position on some kind of a paper verification system  first of all the first one that you ask is is what are we going to do before the two thousand and six election obviously part of the certification requires that if equipment goes down that the information on there the votes on there are able to be taken and retreat so that's part of the test of testing and so the votes we need to make sure that voters know that if something did happen to a piece of equipment that it permission is still there and is available to go into the test i mean into the accounts at the end of the night the other thing is the e c looked at people asking us to take a strong position on it the ac didn't feel we had the authority to take that type of position because we're only an assistance commission and that area and we really really feel that we've not ever supported in we've been her or any type of equipment and there's also testing that is going on currently of what other types of independent test is the available there you know there's the different types that they're looking into so taking a position on one type  feel it was appropriate person to do it so i don't think you're talking about one piece of equipment or one vendor when you say you would support paper verification well that's true but  opposed to a specific kind of technology you know i think what we definitely bear you know definitely support is verification what form of verification that is i mean with a been in studies now you know all those other types but reflect that up to the state to make those decisions and having as a state decision as is if they quit meant is their decision also so we've left that up to the states to make those decisions and that there is no paper trail  verification is possible with the a kind of voting machines that are out there that's true and the state could do that that's a exactly right and over twenty i think it's got twenty six states have some sort of verification paper verification that they pass verification and there are a lot right now or in their rules and regulations and besides that they also have audit that they have you went back to the testing would say look how did you miss this or the test i have not gone back to the testing labs the testing labs have relationship with the vendor not with outsiders or the testing lab have any relationship with plans the first thing we did we did a gap announces in july of two thousand and five to make sure that the states met the the hava requirements then at that time when we adopted him in december of two thousand and five be s g we looked at that and felt like we followed what the f e c had done with the two thousand and two the two year gap because it allows the vendors time to produce what is required in the standards plus it allows the states to brown dr wagner you think that two thousand and five well the system guidelines are an improvement over the previous voting standards and we have ideas maybe not for today or my time won't allow it on i think they're definitely an improvement or they're a good start there's a long way to go they were drafted over a period of only three months and that's not really sufficient time to adjust some of the substantive issues i think in general that is what we were all saying it was a good start it testimony or issues that we're actively addressing i mean just close by saying you know when congressman hoyer and i began this journey on this bill and it went to the senate with senator dodd mccon beyond that frankly there was a lot of discussion about a paper trail during those deliberations and my state does a paper trail we never said you couldn't my state does a paper trail and i know this about voting systems and this you know this hearing but we tried to make the bill primus easier to vote and harder to cheat again my state does a paper trail i think it's something can be looked at frankly when it was introduced i've had discussion mr hope when i was introduced to have moved at that point time i think would have cost total chaos in the system if you can go to china and put a cotton a t m in your money secured nobody can hack into that system we ought to be able to have tests and security which i think is a c r look at in the future and the final issue whether we can have a paper trail or not just me saying in conclusion i want to thank linda lamar for her work on this from its inception and the job that you did for us to be able to get  the bill also there are still nine hundred million dollars owed to the locals by this federal government we give five billion overseas to grow democracies that's a great question for you and i and i would hope like every body on both sides ya'll this try to get the other nine hundred million dollars to the states for the system vote that's cast discounted accurately and the concern that exists that that is not happening is just devastating for a vigorous democracy so i think one of the most important things that we can do here in congress and with our partners in state and local government is to make sure that every american knows that this is all on the up and up and then as i think the chairman or someone said you know you can win or lose an election if you know it was fair you can deal with that but if you think there was something unsavory or corrupt it's a disaster for for our country so having said that i know that we're going to have a hearing on the paper trail issue i'm so glad that we are it's been a long time coming and i think it's very important that we do that i won't dwell on that as a consequence today but i'm interested dr wagner in your comments you mentioned and because i'm callous from california i'm aware that the testing that we have done there is more vigorous than it has been required and that we found with that higher level of testing there's a very high failure rate twenty or so i mean you know or a quarter that fails the thing that's not good it's not acceptable but one thing about it is that it fails it fails in a kind of unbiased way  that's different than the concern about someone hacking a system or intentionally skewing the outcome of the of an election through hacking or a virus or trojan for example if you were able to manipulate the outcome of a vote in that way do you have concerns about that latter issue or is it just about the reliability of systems overall but i have concerns both about reliability as well as the potential for deliberate fraud and you're right i have high praise for the state of california i think if every other state followed california's lead would be in a lot better position there are so there are some potential here even with unintentional failures that this could cause biases for instance there have been cases where more affluent areas have had higher technology voting systems and so if there is some correlation between then that could potentially influence results but i'm also concerned about the integrity of the elections protection against deliberate fraud i think there are some serious issues there as well and we have a long way to go to bring the testing up to snuff have you taken a look suggested to me that even the california systems are susceptible to viruses or to hacking today do you believe that's correct and if it is what if you were sitting in my see what would you do about it but we should recognize that none of the voting systems are perfect and they never will be and it's true that some of the california systems have some are not perfect either but the state of california has gone a long way in instituting rigorous use procedures procedural mitigations to make up for problems in the technology and i'm have confidence in the election that california quitman as a result of that we have to recognize that places a heavy burden on our poll workers and our election administrator this is a this is very complex and not would you recommend that the right now we have these in the matter independent testing labs that really don't report out publicly  and are not transparent in my judgment in the way that the california system is would you suggest that assistance similar to california for testing being either suggested or mandated for the states  localities and that the results of tests testing systems be made public i think california's got to put out a pretty good story on reliability and if we if we adopted california's reliability tests at the federal level that will go a long way in reliability on security issues is very much still up in the air there's a lot of there's a lot of challenges there to make sure that we can have confidence in the software so i computer systems in general you can never have one hundred percent assurance they will work correctly what you do through testing is increased your level of assurance and we're working through tests and coming up with more specific requirements to increase our level that they were correctly and so far as public availability of test reports i think most people would agree that would certainly improve the process that's something we've discussed within the t g c and something we discussed with the a c and thank you dr wagon for your comment just made a minute ago and that is that there's no perfect system and i think we have to be careful we don't try to artificially set a standard that is virtually impossible to meet i also want to call everybody's attention and just a few minutes the buzzers are going to go off and we're going to go over and vote and in terms of paper trail and i want everybody here to know that i support the concept of paper trails but you understand we're going to go and we're going to vote with these little cards ok and this the voting card has an embedded computer chip so that when i put it in the slot it will know that it's me or i will know that i somebody using this card is putting that into the machine that represents me but it has my picture on it it has a graham and as i say it's got an embedded computer chip i want to call your attention to that because one of my concerns is not so much that are voting machines don't work correctly i think there's also the element that is of growing concern to some of us that not only that every vote counts but only those people who are eligible to vote actually go to the polls and this is sort of something i guess we don't really want to talk about but they making sure that the people who are voting on who they say they are and mrs kept maher you know in minnesota we sort of have a little bit of a we have a little more of a problem or potential problem i don't see it is a problem but i do i have some concern about this because we have registration we also have a system where people can literally come in and vote vouch for people at the polls and so far there's not a whole lot of evidence that that has been abused but it's kind of difficult to you know say that it couldn't be abused and what i'm concerned about is some kind of arab the file id system where you have a photograph and or something else this gets more one of you could talk a little bit about that concern counting of the ballots when that is completed and to the standard of a recount and i think those are very important components i think issues such as the id issue with such a thing you have a lot of verified paper trail on actual ballots those are components of integrity in all aspects of the election those who are guiding the polling place are punk workers they're training there's issues on of those are certain very important in the one you bring up as well it's something that i think and then it's down to is an area that we need to make some improvements  on to come up to the standards as other states as well but let me just add one other go to a different subject because if i recall correctly and i hate to sound like a mean connell who served on the budget committee for eight years but i think this bill actually authorized two point three billion dollars i have not been here so long that i still think that that's a lot of money i guess the question i would have for some of the folks who may represent states i mean the integrity of our elections is certainly a federal issue it's an important issue at the federal level but it is no less important to the states and local u s government i'm wondering what do you see as their role in terms of picking up their end of whatever cost there are of buying acquiring new technology the cost of complying with hov is far more than what congress has appropriated and errol and what we've done with the voting system and anything extra to the voting multi layered testing that we do or during and after the election costs money and very expensive to try to do i think it's a california model because i think california copied me in the guys that question your right to three billion dollars but i remember when we were having a discussion with hava and that the federal government money was really there to close the gap because there was a tremendous need and to help get at that but it was also a very important issue that we leave it to the states to continue as they always have been it has been a state responsibility to take care of elections and it has usually been a local responsibility as it is of minnesota to pay for that equipment it's a cooperate relationship but it is a state responsibility as always have been and my concern is that while we appreciate the federal money at this point in the three billion in minnesota we were able to use that money in addition to the five percent match and to totally cover the cost of that election equipment and some monies for licensing maintenance training and some operating money as well especially in the first three years and then after that we were able to structure it and also the additional money that we used on the state level through my office in designing systems that will support and reduce the overall cost of elections so we work very hard to stay within that disco restraint and we in the state of minnesota really want to carry forward that so i would appreciate the additional one hundred million dollars as it was originally discussed to help to conclude that in that part of it but nonetheless i good friend and colleague rush holt for his legislation i want to thank the many folks who come here today to express support it has been six years since the most content contested election in many decades in this country and my recollection is that the most objective and comprehensive analysis after that election revealed that had all the votes been accurately cast and counted a different outcome would have resulted six years later we still have not enacted legislation to prevent that from happening again and common sense bill that would require a paper trail has not been brought to a vote and i would just have to ask i do not for the life of me understand why if we truly care about counting people's votes the majority party has not brought this up so that representatives of the people can exercise the people's will and insist on a paper trail so that we know why votes are counted fairly having said that i have a concern about the time it takes to put one of these institutions or these implementations in place my concern is this this congress pass law that requires that following a catastrophic event with large losses of numbers of members of the congress we would be required within forty nine days to elect new members to this body in other words select candidates have a primary have a general election in forty nine days from your knowledge of what it takes to train poll workers implement the systems verify the systems distribute the equipment etc could you tell me if you think that's reasonable and i would just can text realized that by pointing out that post katrina events in louisiana took them more than six months to have an election and even then it was subject to great controversy so i'd appreciate any insights into that as my colleagues to join in obviously what took place in orlando i mean as his day in louisiana was on president they they even had to start building piles of the voters things like that had been destroyed amongst everything else so it did take a log time and they did a tremendous job and carrying that process through and and having that election i think that one of the things that we really need to think about in the process is they just went right over my head so i'll let somebody else go ahead and then i'll just chairman  chairman boehlert and congressman as well your point is very valid what can we do in forty nine days in minnesota we had a tragic death of senator wellstone eleven days before election day but it was already scheduled but nonetheless we had to get a new candidate we had to get names on the ballot get it done and we did a hand count at that u s senate race alone statewide that night and now the results by two a m in the morning so i think we as a state feel are confident but i think one of the best things in regards to hava is a requirement of every state to have a central voter registration system the ability to technology in this particular area is very very helpful in the guards conducting an emergency election but it also requires a system around that such as our state has which is a five deep backup so that we are able to pull the plug as we practice routinely and keep that voter registration system available to us anywhere within the nation and any time should that happen i think that again it's an issue of time so central voter registration systems i mean you can do a paper ballot there are things that you hand count and you would still be called treatment of voters but having that voter list all those components will be a challenge and certainly i think that our state is ready to do it i think you might underestimate the ability resilience of our country in that kind of catastrophic situation which could have many things would i even be here to do that to tell me that you're going to say that it's a nuclear weapon were detonated in some of our major cities we could settle nuclear well once we could confidently have a va election reflecting the will of the people in forty nine days of that event i think in any circumstance like that sir it would be extremely difficult without a doubt absolutely without a doubt but you have a country that needs to move forward and we have to do the best we can under those extremely challenging circumstances and i will add one thing that i think is one of the biggest problems that we have is our overseas and military that is abroad i was just going to ask the next question so that's i mean that is one of the biggest areas and we're doing the study on that what states are doing currently and to make sure that they have the right to vote there's tronic transmittal of those ballots over and some states and then they mail back to make sure that we cut down on that timeframe because obviously time getting ballots over there and back is a running around forty days is what we're told is jemmett i appreciate the comments one final question left for me by mr holt but i just want to get on the record and i don't think every time the answer is this he points out that apparently under the voluntary voting system guidelines there is an acceptance of a nine point two percent failure rate of all voting machines used in any fifteen hour period i'm curious if that is actually th standard that we've set at one point two percent failure rate and if that's an acceptable standard i'm very puzzled by that that's by the way far less than an incandescent light bulb that's that comes from the existing standards and we're researching right wanted to point out we are having a hearing on this later i also want to point out to mister before he leaves he bought a very important point about ensuring that the correct people are voting we have had one hearing on mr