Vendors insist that their programs are proprietary and state certification boards appear to agree. In addition, there are no mandatory guidelines the vendors have to follow, other than their own, when it comes to installing specific security features on voting systems. There is also no organized effort on the part of election officials to demand that certain criteria for reliability and accuracy are met. With little pressure for change coming from the election community, or anyone else for that matter, the vendors are free to do as they see fit. The public needs to be thinking about these questions.
Someone needs to be providing the answers.
Election officials, especially in the smaller jurisdictions with limited resources, will unknowingly continue to eagerly adopt the inadequate standards which contain implicit instructions to trust the vendors. This will create a false sense of security in the election community and make voting systems more vulnerable than ever before. Some jurisdictions will inevitably ignore part of the standards that don't meet their needs. No one will perform an independent audit to verify its accuracy and integrity. The FEC has not yet issued management guidelines for elections but states are moving ahead with plans of their own.