May 21, 2007 

To: Technical Guidelines Development Committee 

In Section 2.2 History of Federal Voting System Standards and Guidelines, in the May 21-22, 

2007 Draft Recommendations, it is stated, in the first two sentences, that "In 1975, the National 

Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) and the Office of 

Federal Elections (the Office of Election Administration's predecessor at the General Accounting 

Office) produced a joint report, Effective Use of Computing Technology in Vote Tallying. This 

report concluded that a basic cause of computer-related election problems was the lack of 

appropriate technical skills at the state and local level to develop or implement sophisticated 

Standards against which voting system hardware and software could be tested." 

 

These sentences are not exactly correct, and I would like to provide a more correct history. My 

work was significant in this history, and the record needs to be set straight. I joined the National 

Bureau of Standards in 1969, in its relatively new unit, the Center for Computer Sciences and 

Technology. (This organization would become, first, the Institute for Computer Sciences and 

Technology and, eventually, the Information Technology Laboratory.) The center was 

established as a result of passage of a federal law in 1965 called The Brooks Act after Rep. Jack 

Brooks (D-TX). The Brooks Act was concerned with the management of the federal 

government's data processing equipment. There were only mainframes at the time; personal 

computers were unknown. The number of computers in the federal inventory were counted and 

reported. Now, with personal computers everywhere, such a number would be meaningless, not 

much more important than counting the number of typewriters. In fact, now there are likely to 

be more computers than typewriters. 

 

The Office of Management and Budget was to become, under the Brooks Act, the policy-maker 

for information systems. The General Services Administration was to have the function of 

procurer of data processing equipment. The National Bureau of Standards (NBS) was required 

to set standards so that computers of different manufacturers in the federal inventory could 

communicate with each other, and so that programmers could use their skills with more than one 

type of computer. NBS was also given the right to undertake consulting in data processing for 

other federal agencies. 

 

In 1973, I was asked to find additional other-agency projects for NBS in the computer sciences 

area. In that year, I met Gary Greenhalgh, who was manager of the Clearinghouse on Election 

Administration, a unit in the Office of Federal Elections (OFE) of the General Accounting 

Office. Gary said that the OFE had received a letter, said to be from Sen. John Tunney (D-CA), 

asking for a study of computerized voting, since there had been considerable difficulty in the use 

of punch card voting systems in southern California. With the agreement of Assistant 

Comptroller-General Phillip "Sam" Hughes, and the assent of Comptroller-General Elmer Staats, 

the Clearinghouse gave NBS $100,000 in early 1974 to carry out an other-agency project for 

them. The result of the project was the report called Effective Use of Computing Technology in 

Vote-Tallying. 
 

This report was an NBSIR (National Bureau of Standards Interagency Report) issued in 1975 

and numbered 75-687. The report has my name (and no other) on the cover as author. In 1978, 

NBS reprinted the report as SP 500-30, with no changes. Thus, this report, similarly, has my 

name as author, and it may be obtained under that number. It was reprinted in that series at my 

request, since the NBSIR series would not be stored in federal depository libraries, but the SP 

500 series would be. If that had not happened, the demand for the publication that occurred after 

the debacle in Florida in 2000 could not have been satisfied. In general, NBSIR documents are 

not retained. 

 

I spent a year writing this report and charged my time against the $100,000 from GAO. The 

report was issued by NBS in 1975. It was not a collaboration with the Office of Election 

Administration; the list of Acknowledgements on pages iii and iv does not show any personnel 

from that office. However, Staats and Hughes made clear that their policy direction was that 

current data processing equipment used in vote-tallying was not to be described as defective, so 

as not to reduce public confidence. The situation with regard to the arrangement between NBS 

and OFE is stated in the third and fourth paragraphs, starting on page 1, of the report: 

 

 "In recognition of concerns expressed in Congress and by election officials and the public, the 

Clearinghouse, through the General Accounting Office, requested that the Institute [of Computer 

Sciences and Technology] study the use of computers in vote-tallying. Such concerns are that 

increasing computerization of election-related functions may result in the loss of effective 

control over these functions by responsible authorities and that this loss of control may increase 

the possibility of vote fraud. 

 "The Institute was specifically asked to "conduct a systems analysis and evaluation of the role 

of automatic digital processing equipment in the vote-tallying process." Included in the analysis 

was to be an identification of the hardware, software, and administrative problems that had been 

encountered; an evaluation, where possible, of the causes of the problems; and an analysis of 

methods currently being employed to detect and prevent computer vote-fraud. Areas of 

investigation were to include election system design, training of election officials, ballot 

accountability, certification and inspection of computer programs, independent audits of election 

processes, counting center security provisions, and ballot recounts. The Institute also was 

specifically asked to "develop operational guidelines that election administrators could 

implement to help insure the accuracy and security of the vote-tallying process." In addition, the 

Institute was requested to assess the impact of new technological developments involving 

computers on the vote-counting process and to provide information on how those developments 

might be employed and made secure." 

 

The conclusions of the report cover many of these areas, and they concern many of the issues 

that remain current and under discussion. The Summary Findings and Conclusions cover seven 

pages, from page 3 through page 9. I suggest that members of the TGDC may wish to read these 

pages in order to appreciate all of the different technical subjects covered by the report and how 

proposed concerns in 1975 mesh with current concerns. 

 

In view of this history, I suggest that the first two sentences in Section 2.2 be re-written as 

follows: 
 "In 1974, the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology) began a research project under computer scientist Roy G. Saltman, funded by the 

Office of Federal Elections of the General Accounting Office. This project resulted in a 1975 

NBS Interagency Report, later reprinted as SP 500-30, Effective Use of Computing Technology 

in Vote-Tallying. The report provided findings and conclusions about improving the accuracy 

and security of the vote-tallying process, about improving the management of the election 

preparation process, and about institutional factors affecting accuracy and security. The report 

also pointed out the lack of systematic research on election equipment and systems, and on 

human engineering of voting equipment, and it concluded that the setting of national minimum 

standards for federal election procedures would serve a valuable function." 

 

I request that the TGDC give serious consideration to my proposals for changes in wording. 

 

Sincerely, 

Roy G. Saltman 

Consultant and Author on Election Technology 

5025 Broken Oak Lane 

Columbia, MD 21044 

Phone: 410-730-4983 

Fax: 410-997-4355