Memorandum

To: Election Assistance Commission (EAC)

EAC Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC)

CC: Chair, IEEE P1583

From: Peter F. Klammer, P.E. – pklammer@ieee.org – 303/915-2673

Member, National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), Association

for Computing Machinery (ACM), Institute for Electrical and Electonics

Engineers (IEEE), IEEE Standards Association, Coloradoans for Voting

Integrity (CfVI)

Date: 12/21/2004

Re: IEEE Project 1583 Standards for Voting Equipment Draft 5.3.2

Principles Which Should Precede Consideration of this Standard

IEEE P1583 proposes a standard for polling-place machines, which are but cogs

among the greater gears of our election system. However, they are the most visible,

and for most common citizens, the only point of contact with the system.

Furthermore, they are the most critical, since these machines must produce the

ballots that are the primary evidence upon which all credibility of our democracy

relies and depends.

An unstated charge of the Election Assistance Commission is to formulate a set of

overriding principles which will be durable yardstick and enduring touchstone to

measure and grade the EAC’s decisions and recommendations. Without such

principles, its edicts may devolve into expedient and conflicted rationalizations. But

with a thoughtful framework of wise principles, well enunciated, the public may

often correctly anticipate the consistent intended effects of the EAC’s work. You

won’t need reams of specifications if you make your major expectations clear.

The leading principle that we would ask the EAC to adopt is TRANSPARENCY.

The crux of the dispute between vendors and activists is whether or not it is

sufficient for voting machines to count correctly. We argue that this is necessary,

but not sufficient, because this point of view ignores voters’ trust and confidence. In

politics, perception is all. Healthy democracy depends on broad, committed

participation. You must affirm: the "overall purpose" of our election system is not

simply to produce correct numbers; it is in fact twofold: to produce demonstrably

valid results, while giving its users – voters and candidates – credible, convincing

confidence that it is properly doing so.

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December 21, 2004

The second principle we would ask the EAC to recognize is an acceptable and

reasonable definition of what a BALLOT should be. The word “ballot” has been

tortuously flim-flammed and bamboozled into an oxymoronic market phrase,

“electronic ballot.” The virtues of “digital electronic” magic that have showered

upon us benefits of clearer music, sharper pictures, do not transfer well into the

electoral domain. Unless a ballot is a durable, indelible, physical artifact; unless

each and every ballot is unique and resistant to duplication or destruction – and

obviously and evidently so from a layman's perspective; unless a ballot is a “thing”

and not merely a stipulation, there can be no hope of ultimately preventing clever

manipulation, nor of dismissing skeptical cynics or conspiracy theorists. Physical

ballots are burdensome nuisances; in the case of elections, these are virtues.

Third, I would ask the EAC to take a firm position of precautionary conservatism:

whatever isn’t explicitly allowed, must be prohibited. As the draft stands, only the

things described must be tested, and only the tests described must be conducted.

Under the halo of “incentive to innovate,” vendors have argued for free hand to

introduce new technologies and implementations not anticipated by the standard.

That attitude may make good consumer appliances, but it would make bad medicine.

Voters do not want be the guinea pigs of industry; elections need not be the test beds

of market competition. Voting machinery should follow the model of aviation,

wherein a new model must be type-certified for safety, and deployed fleets may be

expected to operate reliably and economically for decades.

With a well-chosen set of guiding principles starting with these, many of the issues

and questions of election equipment and administration would answer themselves.

There will be no need to rule on the enforcement of two hundred fifty pages of

technical minutiae if the most important questions can be answered in the

affirmative: Is the operation of this machine, along with the rest of the system it

works with, visibly and inarguably persuasive in the way it works, to all parties, not

just to government-certified technical specialists but to any common citizen? Does

it print or mark a physical ballot, which I can see and cast? If so, then its inner

workings are of little consequence. Otherwise, if my choices are consigned to

internal intricacies beyond my comprehension, and if the eventual “casting” of my

choices into tangible form at the close of the election is forcibly delegated from me

to an electronic agent beyond my control, then we will be doomed to an infinite

regression of dispute, doubt, and distrust.

I commend my colleagues for their diligent efforts and sincere dedication to the

goals and purposes of P1583. However, the work is presently flawed and

incomplete, largely due to lack of internal consensus on such fundamental principles

as the EAC might externally be able to apply.

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