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[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 173 (Thursday, September 6, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54905-54907]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-21895]

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ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION

Request for Substantive Comments on the EAC's Proposed 
Requirements for Version 1.1 of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 
(VVSG)

AGENCY: United States Election Assistance Commission.

ACTION: Request for public comment on proposed requirements for Version 
1.1 of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG).

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SUMMARY: The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) (Pub. L. 107-252; 42 
U.S.C. 15301 et seq. (October 29, 2002)) established the U.S. Election 
Assistance Commission (EAC). Section 202 of HAVA directs the EAC to 
adopt voluntary voting system guidelines (VVSG) and to provide for the 
testing, certification, decertification, and recertification of voting 
system hardware and software. The VVSG provides specifications and 
standards against which voting systems can be tested to determine if 
they provide basic functionality, accessibility, and security 
capabilities. As required by Section 222 (d) of HAVA, the EAC is 
publishing a set of proposed requirements (Voluntary Voting System 
Guidelines, 1.1) for the testing of voting systems for a 90 day public 
comment period.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    The EAC made the decision to update and revise the 2005 VVSG (also 
known as VVSG 1.0) as a result of feedback received through its Voting 
System Testing and Certification Program. As the EAC has worked to test 
and certify voting systems it observed and received feedback from 
various sources that the standards being tested to were at times 
ambiguous and difficult to apply in testing. This ambiguity led to 
challenges in making testing consistent both within a test laboratory 
and across test campaigns at different laboratories. The EAC also 
received feedback from the National Institute of Standards and 
Technology (NIST) that the creation of formalized test suites for the 
2005 VVSG would be aided by a clarification of certain portions of 
document. This information, combined with the EAC's issuance of thirty 
five interpretations of the VVSG to clarify various standards, led the 
EAC to propose improvements to the 2005 VVSG. In addition, the EAC 
determined to implement a number of recommendations submitted by the 
EAC's Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC).
    The TGDC held numerous public meetings and subcommittee conference 
calls to create a set of draft guidelines for recommendation to the EAC 
(all TGDC meeting materials can be found at http://www.nist.gov/itl/vote/). On August 17, 2007, the TGDC voted to complete final edits of 
their recommendations and submitted them to the Executive Director of 
the EAC. The EAC received the draft guidelines from the TGDC on August 
31, 2007.
    After receipt of the TGDC's recommendations for the next iteration 
(VVSG 2.0) of the VVSG the EAC opened a one hundred and eighty day 
public comment period. During this comment period, which ran from 
September 2007 to May 2008, the EAC received comments praising many of 
the proposed standards as being more testable and less ambiguous than 
previous versions of the standard. This public comment period produced 
over 3000 comments on the recommendations. In addition, during the 
comment period the EAC conducted a series of seven roundtable 
discussions regarding the TGDC's recommendations. After the close of 
the public comment period for the TGDC's VVSG 2.0 recommendations and 
considering a variety of relevant factors, the EAC made the decision to 
first update and revise the 2005 VVSG with portions of the TGDC's 
recommendations. This serves as the basis for the creation of VVSG 1.1.
    As noted during the previous public comment period for version VVSG 
1.1, by revising the guidelines now, the EAC expects to improve the 
test process over the short term for existing voting systems while 
allowing additional time to develop more complex revisions for the 
requirements in VVSG 2.0 written for the next generation of voting 
systems. Topics currently undergoing

[[Page 54906]]

continued research at NIST include open ended vulnerability testing/
penetration testing, volume testing, further development of the concept 
of software independence and the development (with IEEE Working Group 
P1622 of a common data format for voting systems.

Changes to VVSG 1.1 Since the Initial Public Comment Period

    The initial proposed revision to VVSG 1.1, was offered during a 
120-day public comment period in the summer of 2009. Since that time, 
the EAC's Testing & Certification Program has discovered additional 
best practices, experienced anomalies and deficiencies with voting 
systems entering the Testing and Certification Program, and clarified 
many ambiguities with the standard. Changes were made after the 120-day 
public comment period to address these issues. Since the initial public 
comment, changes were made to the following areas:

 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 Heading                                                  Comment
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Telecommunications......................  Treated all results as official.
NSRL....................................  Removed all references.
Software Validation.....................  Provided a secondary method of software validation not available in
                                           the 2005 VVSG.
Access Control..........................  Enhanced access control requirements based on the two-tier access
                                           control model present in today's election equipment.
Quality Assurance and Configuration       Combined sections 8 and 9 into a single section.
 Management.
Coding Convention
Required Languages......................  Required all systems to officially support at least one ideographic
                                           language.
Audit and Election Logging..............  Enhanced and strengthen logging requirements by providing greater
                                           clarity and specific, especially for election logs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Additionally, the EAC included all relevant Requests for 
Interpretations (located at the EAC's Web site) within the latest draft 
of VVSG 1.1. Please be aware that those sections added since the close 
of the initial public comment period for VVSG 1,1 are the only sections 
that the EAC is accepting comments on for this 90-day public comment 
period.

Project Summary

    Although both Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the VVSG 1.1 draft have 
undergone revisions, and should be commented on, we believe most 
commenter's should focus on the significant changes to Volume 1 of the 
draft document. Major sections of VVSG 1.1 Volume 1 revised for this 
comment period include but are not limited to:

Volume 1

2.12 Accuracy
2.1.4 Integrity
2.1.5.1 Operational Requirements
2.3.1 Opening the Polls
2.3.3.3 DRE and EBM System requirements
2.4.1 Closing the Polls
2.4.4.2 Tabulator electronic reports
3.2.2.1 Editable electronic ballot interfaces
3.2.5 Visual display characteristics
3.3.2 Enhanced visual interfaces
3.3.4 Enhanced input and control characteristics
4.1.1 Accuracy requirements
4.1.2 Environmental requirements
4.1.2.4 Electrical supply
4.1.5.2 Ballot reading accuracy
4.3.3 Reliability
5.2.1 Scope (Software requirements)
5.2.2 Selection of programming languages
5.2.4 Software modularity and programming
5.2.5 Structured programming
5.2.8 Error checking
5.5 Vote secrecy on DRE and EBM systems
6.2.2 Durability (Telecommunications)
6.2.3 Reliability
7.1 Scope (Security requirements)
7.2 Access control
7.3 Physical security measures
7.4.4 Software distribution
7.4.5 Software reference information
7.4.6 Software setup validation
7.5.1 Maintaining data integrity
7.5.5 Election returns
7.7.3 Protecting transmitted data
7.8.2 Approve or void the paper record
7.8.3 Electronic and paper record structure
8 Quality Assurance and Configuration Management (all)
    All changes made since the last public comment period are 
highlighted in yellow in the version published on the EAC's Web site 
and in the Federal Register.
    The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) lacks a quorum of 
commissioners since the resignation of Commissioner Gracia Hillman on 
December 10, 2010. The EAC lost its two remaining commissioners in 
December 2011, with the resignations of Commissioners Gineen Bresso and 
Donetta Davidson. Because HAVA requires an affirmative vote of the 
Commission (Section 222(d)), all comments received will be reviewed and 
published as noted below. The final VVSG 1.1 draft document will be 
prepared for a Commission vote at such time as the EAC once again has a 
quorum of Commissioners.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before 4 p.m. EST on December 5, 
2012.
    Submission of Comments: The public may submit comments through one 
of the two different methods provided by the EAC: (1) Email submissions 
to votingsystemguidelines@eac.gov; (2) by mail to Voluntary Voting 
System Guidelines Comments, U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 1201 
New York Ave. NW., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005.
    In order to allow efficient and effective review of comments the 
EAC requests that:
    (1) Comments refer to the specific section that is the subject of 
the comment.
    (2) General comments regarding the entire document or comments that 
refer to more than one section be made as specifically as possible so 
that EAC can clearly understand to which portion(s) of the documents 
the comment refers.
    (3) To the extent that a comment suggests a change in the wording 
of a requirement or section of the guidelines, please provide proposed 
language for the suggested change.

[[Page 54907]]

    All comments submitted will be published at the end of the comment 
period on the EAC's Web site at www.eac.gov. This publication and 
request for comment is not required under the rulemaking, adjudicative, 
or licensing provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). It 
is a voluntary effort by the EAC to gather input from the public on the 
EAC's administrative procedures for certifying voting systems to be 
used in pilot projects. Furthermore, this request by the EAC for public 
comment is not intended to make any of the APA's rulemaking provisions 
applicable to development of this or future EAC procedural programs.
    An electronic copy of the proposed guidance may be found on the 
EAC's Web site at http://www.eac.gov/open/comment.aspx.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Brian Hancock, Phone (202) 566-3100, 
email votingsystemguidelines@eac.gov.

Alice P. Miller,
 Chief Operating Officer and Acting Executive Director, U.S. Election 
Assistance Commission.
[FR Doc. 2012-21895 Filed 9-5-12; 8:45 am]
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