OPENING REMARKS BY ARDEN L. BEMENT, Jr. 

Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology 

First Symposium on Building Trust and Confidence in Voting Systems 

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003 

Thank you and good morning. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to address 

this extremely timely and important symposium. 

Major changes are taking place in our voting systems. 

Our trusty old ballot boxes often are being replaced by a host of new technologies. 

Citizens are now much more likely to encounter optical scanners or touch screen 

systems at the polling place than a wooden box with a sturdy lock. 

As a result of these changes, Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act -- 

commonly known as HAVA -- in October of 2002. 

The act gives NIST a key role in helping to examine and improve voting systems by 

2006. 

To coordinate our work, NIST has established a Voting Systems Office within our 

Information Technology Laboratory, which has a great deal of expertise in areas such 

as computer security and usability. 

For some time now we have been meeting with members of the elections community 

-- ranging from individual citizens to local election officials and voting machine 

vendors – to learn more about their concerns. 

I want to stress that NIST is a non-regulatory agency, and we recognize that our role 

is limited. It is essential that we be in close contact with a variety of interested 

parties. This symposium is being held in that spirit. 

I also want to say up front that there is much work to be done and that much of this 

job will be tackled by others. Our share of that workload will be determined in part 

by the Help America Vote Act’s requirements, what the community thinks we can 

and should do, and by the resources available to us. To date, we have been doing the 

preparatory work, if you will. 

Meanwhile, we are preparing a report to Congress on the usability and accessibility of 

voting systems. 

Our computer scientists are reviewing voting machine standards in light of a growing 

body of research on how to make these systems easily accessible to everyone, 

including the blind and other voters with disabilities. 
We also are examining assistive technologies for individuals with disabilities and 

varying levels of literacy. 

Additionally, voting machines can and should be designed in a way that allows poll 

workers to set up the machines properly and easily. 

When voting is complete, poll workers should be able to get an accurate final tally in 

a timely manner. 

NIST has considerable experience working with independent testing authorities and 

private-sector laboratories that handle security evaluations of complex computer 

systems. In coordination with the Election Assistance Commission, we expect to 

apply our experience in this area to voting systems. 

Under HAVA, NIST will propose a process to accredit independent testing 

laboratories as part of the transition from the current accreditation process developed 

and conducted by the National Association of State Election Directors for the Federal 

Election Commission. 

While many of these efforts are already under way, we have longer term goals as well 

– again, depending in part on resources. 

The Election Assistance Commission, or EAC, is called for by the Help America 

Vote Act to oversee voting standards efforts. We are pleased to welcome to the 

symposium two of the nominees to the EAC-- Paul DiGregorio and Gracia Hillman. 

They will be making some brief remarks tomorrow morning. We’re glad they’re here, 

and we look forward to working with them in future voting standards endeavors. 

I have the privilege of chairing the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, 

called for by the Help America Vote Act. 

This committee is charged with making recommendations to the EAC with regard to 

voluntary standards and guidelines related to voting machines. 

In collaboration with many of the election community groups here today, NIST is to 

provide world-class standards research and recommendations to this technical 

guidelines effort at the request of the Election Assistance Commission. 

NIST also will serve as the executive secretariat to the Technical Guidelines 

Development Committee. 

The committee will provide technical guidance on implementing election-related 

technologies that have an impact on issues such as security and usability. 

NIST could focus on a number of different areas under HAVA. 
Near the top of the list would be examining the security of computers, computer 

networks, and computer data storage used in voting systems. 

Also important is encouraging the development of methods to prevent fraud and 

methods to detect fraud should it take place. 

And, NIST could examine ways to ensure the protection of voter privacy. 

We are by no means newcomers to this area. Let me take a few moments to describe 

some of NIST’s previous efforts in the voting technology arena. 

During the 1970s, several states and localities ran into voting equipment problems, 

and guidelines for testing or evaluating voting machines were the exception rather 

than the rule. 

In 1975 NIST prepared a report titled Effective Use of Computing Technology in Vote 

Tallying. 

The report concluded that a critical lack of technical skills at the state and local level 

was hampering efforts to implement needed testing and standards. 

This report, and the efforts of many state and local election officials, led Congress to 

designate the Federal Elections Commission to do a study of the feasibility of 

developing national standards for election systems. 

The FEC released the study in 1982. 

Congress responded by appropriating funds for the FEC to develop national standards 

for computerized voting systems. 

NIST also published a study in 1988 titled Accuracy, Integrity and Security in 

Computerized Vote-Tallying. 

This report made suggestions about improving voting systems in ways that would 

help to build greater public confidence in election results and led to the adoption of 

voting standards by the FEC. 

The long-standing efforts by the FEC and the National Association of State Election 

Directors to create and implement the current voting system standards provide a 

foundation on which the next generation of standards can be built. 

We realize how important it is for voters to have trust and confidence in voting 

systems even as new technologies are introduced. Increasingly, computer technology 

touches all aspects of the voting process – voter registration, vote recording, and vote 

tallying. 
Consequently, issues about computer technology used in the voting process have 

expanded from the single question of accuracy for tallying votes to the larger issue of 

information technology security: specifically, integrity, availability, and 

confidentiality of information within voting systems. Panelists today and tomorrow 

will discuss these critical issues. 

 

Ultimately, our collaborative efforts should lead to improved experiences for 

individual voters as well as election officials. 

In addition to the considerable technical expertise NIST brings to the table, we also 

have a great deal of experience in developing standards, which is a critical part of the 

challenge before us. 

To accomplish our mission, NIST works at home and internationally with standards 

development organizations, a number of which will be represented on the Technical 

Guidelines Development Committee. 

Our goal is to enable U.S. industry to produce products and services that are high 

quality, reliable, interoperable, and secure. 

We aim to facilitate the benefits of standardization while preserving plenty of room 

for innovation and change. 

Quite often standards development begins as a highly contentious process because 

people represent a variety of interests. 

I urge you to share your vision of changes that would benefit the American voter. We 

also welcome your views as to how NIST could best support efforts to improve 

voting systems. 

Despite the complexity of the issues that we face, I am very optimistic about the 

outcome because we have seen standards development efforts succeed even in the 

face of serious obstacles. 

I am delighted that so many of you have volunteered your time and expertise at this 

symposium, and I thank you for being here. 

I challenge you to give this your very best effort.