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## Voting

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# Interoperability Public Working Group

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READ-ONLY SITE MATERIALS: Historical voting TWiki site (2015-2020) ARCHIVED from https://collaborate.nist.gov/voting/bin/view/Voting

Interoperability Working Groups and Common Data Format

The Interoperability working groups are for the discussion and development of guidance for voting system interoperability, including common data format (CDF) modeling and schema development. The guidance will inform the development of requirements for the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG). The main activity underway is the development of CDF specifications for voting device imports and exports. Another activity is assisting with interoperability-related requirements development for the next VVSG.

Many election officials view voting system interoperability as necessary core function for future voting technology. This working group has as its objective the development of guidance and CDFs that will result in voting system interoperability, bringing with it various advantages, including:
                    - Increased efficiency in election operations.
                    - Cost savings to election operations and to cost of system integration.
                    - Greater choice of voting equipment in the marketplace.
                    - More automated generation of EAC survey data.
                    - Reduced cost of testing and component certification.
                    - Greater transparency to election data.

## Next VVSG Requirements Development

The working group has been assisting in the development of principles and guidelines and general interoperability requirements for the next VVSG.

The latest draft of the **VVSG glossary** is located here:

https://github.com/HiltonRoscoe/GlossaryMD/blob/master/vvsg_living_glossary.md

These definitions will in some cases need to be edited so as to be more clear, but they also need to be examined by election officials and others to ensure the definitions are accurate. If you have any changes or suggestions, please send email to john.wack [at] nist.gov (john[dot]wack[at]nist[dot]gov).

The latest drafts of requirements for the next VVSG are located here:

https://www.eac.gov/voting-equipment/voluntary-voting-system-guidelines/

## CDF Specification Development

The CDF work is documented at

https://www.nist.gov/itl/voting/interoperability

Each CDF specification has its own GitHub repository (see What is GitHub) and, in most cases, web-based documentation. The repositories contain the UML models and XML/JSON schemas, in addition to a PDF of the CDF specification and other documentation. The following table contains links to the repositories and web-based documentation:

## Current Status and Meetings

The NIST Voting System Interoperability Working Group meets by telecon as needed. The interoperability working group meetings generally include overviews of current work and discussion of broader issues such as overall scope of the CDF work. In addition, the meetings also may focus on interoperability-related requirements for the next VVSG.

Membership in this group is open to all; please subscribe to the email list, following instructions at VVSG Working Group Lists page.

## Documents (including meeting minutes): 

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### **Voting TWiki Archive (2015-2020): read-only, archived wiki site, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)**

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**ARCHIVE SITE DESCRIPTION AND DISCLAIMER**

This page, and related pages, represent archived materials (pages, documents, links, and content) that were produced and/or provided by members of public working groups engaged in collaborative activities to support the development of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) 2.0. These TWiki activities began in 2015 and continued until early 2020. During that time period, this content was hosted on a Voting TWiki site. That TWiki site was decommissioned in 2020 due to technology migration needs. The TWiki activities that generated this content ceased to operate actively through the TWiki at the time the draft VVSG 2.0 was released, in February of 2020. The historical pages and documents produced there have been archived now in read-only, static form.
                    - The archived materials of this TWiki (including pages, documents, links, content) are provided for historical purposes only.
                    - They are not actively maintained.
                    - They are provided "as is" as a public service.
                    - They represent the "work in progress" efforts of a community of volunteer members of public working groups collaborating from late 2015 to February of 2020.
                    - These archived materials do not necessarily represent official or peer-reviewed NIST documents nor do they necessarily represent official views or statements of NIST.
                    - Unless otherwise stated these materials should be treated as historical, pre-decisional, artifacts of public working group activities only.
                    - NIST MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT AND DATA ACCURACY.
                    - NIST does not warrant or make any representations regarding the correctness, accuracy, reliability or usefulness of the archived materials.

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**ARCHIVED VOTING TWIKI SITE MATERIALS**

This wiki was a collaborative website. NIST does not necessarily endorse the views expressed, or concur with the facts presented on these archived TWiki materials. Further, NIST does not endorse any commercial products that may be mentioned in these materials. Archived material on this TWiki site is made available to interested parties for informational and research purposes. Materials were contributed by Participants with the understanding that all contributed material would be publicly available.  Contributions were made by Participants with the understanding that that no copyright or patent right shall be deemed to have been waived by such contribution or disclosure. Any data or information provided is for illustrative purposes only, and does not imply a validation of results by NIST. By selecting external links, users of these materials will be leaving NIST webspace. Links to other websites were provided because they may have information that would be of interest to readers of this TWiki. No inferences should be drawn on account of other sites being referenced, or not referenced, from this page or these materials. There may be other websites or references that are more appropriate for a particular reader's purpose.

Voting systems

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