Following the 2000 national elections, we produced a comprehensive series of reports covering our nation’s election process that culminated with a capping report and framework for the Congress to use to enact reforms for election administration. Our reports were among the resources that the Congress drew on in enacting the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, which provided guidance for fundamental election administration reform and created the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to oversee the election administration reform process. HAVA also provided funding to replace older voting equipment, specifically punch card and mechanical lever voting equipment and encouraged adoption of other technology. Subsequently, jurisdictions have increased their use of electronic voting methods, of which there are two commonly- used types: optical scan and direct recording electronic (DRE). Enacted by Congress in October 2002, HAVA affects nearly every aspect of the voting process, from voting technology to provisional ballots and from voter registration to poll worker training. In particular, the act authorized $3.86 billion in funding over several fiscal years for programs to replace punch card and mechanical lever voting equipment, improve election administration and accessibility, train poll workers, and perform research and pilot studies. HAVA also established the EAC to assist in the administration of federal elections and provide assistance with the administration of certain federal election laws and programs. HAVA also established minimum election administration standards for the states and units of local government that are responsible for the administration of federal elections. The act specifically tasked the EAC to serve as a national clearinghouse and resource for compiling election information and reviewing election procedures; for example, it is to conduct periodic studies of election administration issues, including electronic voting system performance, to promote methods of voting and administration that are most convenient, accessible, and easy to use for all voters. Other examples of EAC responsibilities include developing and adopting voluntary voting system guidelines and maintaining information on the experiences of states in implementing the guidelines and operating voting systems; testing, certifying, decertifying, and recertifying voting system hardware and software through accredited laboratories; making payments to states to help them improve elections in the areas of voting systems standards, provisional voting and voting information requirements, and computerized statewide voter registration lists; and making grants for research on voting technology improvements. The act also established the Technical Guidelines Development Committee to support the EAC, making it responsible for recommending voluntary voting system guidelines to the EAC. The act assigned the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) responsibility for providing technical support to the development committee and made the NIST Director the committee chair. The EAC began operations in January 2004, initially focusing on the distribution of funds to help states meet HAVA’s Title III requirements for uniform and nondiscriminatory election technology and administration, including the act’s requirements pertaining to voting system standards, provisional voting, voting information, a computerized statewide voter registration list, and identification for first-time voters who register to vote by mail. Actions EAC has taken since 2004 to improve voting systems include publishing the Best Practices Toolkit and specialized management guides to assist states and local jurisdictions with managing election-related activities and equipment; issuing voting system standards in 2005, referred to as the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines; establishing procedures for certifying voting systems; establishing a program for accreditation of independent testing laboratories, with support from NIST’s National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program; disbursing to states approximately $2.3 billion in appropriations for the replacement of older voting equipment and election administration improvements under Title III of HAVA; and conducting national surveys of the 2004 general election, uniformed and overseas voters, and other studies. For fiscal year 2006, EAC’s appropriation totaled $14.1 million. EAC reported that this included $3.8 million (27 percent) for activities related to development and adoption of the voting system standards and the voting system certification program; $3.5 million (25 percent) for research and study and to establish the EAC as a national clearinghouse of election administration information; and $2.8 million (20 percent) to manage HAVA funds distributed to the states. The remaining funds went to various administrative expenses, including funding various advisory board meetings. EAC’s budget for fiscal year 2007 is $16.91 million, of which $4.95 million (29 percent) is to be transferred to NIST for its work on voting system standards and research performed under HAVA. EAC’s requested budget for fiscal year 2008 is $15.5 million, of which $3.25 million (21 percent) is to be transferred to NIST. In the United States today, most votes are cast and counted by one of two types of electronic voting systems: optical scan and direct recording electronic. For the November 2004 general election, optical scan was the predominant voting method for more than half of local jurisdictions nationwide. In contrast, DREs were used as the predominant voting method by an estimated 7 percent of jurisdictions, although they were the predominant voting method for large jurisdictions. Figure 1 shows the estimated use of predominant voting methods for small, medium, and large jurisdictions in the 2004 general election. Optical scan voting systems use electronic technology to tabulate paper ballots. For the 2004 general election, we estimated that about 51 percent of all local jurisdictions predominantly used optical scan voting equipment. An optical scan voting system is made up of computer-readable ballots, appropriate marking devices, privacy booths, and a computerized tabulation device. The ballot, which can be of various sizes, lists the names of the candidates and the issues. Voters record their choices using an appropriate writing instrument to fill in boxes or ovals or to complete an arrow next to the candidate’s name or the issue. The ballot includes a space for write-ins to be placed directly on the ballot. Optical scan ballots are tabulated by optical-mark-recognition equipment (see figure 2), which counts the ballots by sensing or reading the marks on the ballot. Ballots can be counted at the polling place—this is referred to as precinct-count optical scan—or at a central location. If ballots are counted at the polling place, voters or election officials put the ballots into the tabulation equipment, which tallies the votes; these tallies can be captured in removable storage media that are transported to a central tally location, or they can be electronically transmitted from the polling place to the central tally location. If ballots are centrally counted, voters drop ballots into sealed boxes and election officials transfer the sealed boxes to the central location after the polls close, where election officials run the ballots through the tabulation equipment. Software instructs the tabulation equipment to assign each vote (i.e., to assign valid marks on the ballot to the proper candidate or issue). In addition to identifying the particular contests and candidates, the software can be configured to capture, for example, straight party voting and vote-for-no-more-than-N contests. Precinct-based optical scanners can also be programmed to detect overvotes (where the voter votes for two candidates for one office, for example, invalidating the vote) and undervotes (where the voter does not vote for all contests or issues on the ballot) and to take some action in response (rejecting the ballot, for instance), so that voters can fix their mistakes before leaving the polling place. If ballots are tabulated centrally, voters do not have the opportunity to detect and correct mistakes that may have been made. In addition, optical scan systems often use vote-tally software to tally the vote totals from one or more vote tabulation devices. Optical scan systems were widely used as the predominant voting method for jurisdictions in the 2004 general election and we reported last year that jurisdictions planned to acquire more of these systems for the 2006 general election. We estimated that 30 percent of jurisdictions nationwide used precinct count optical scan voting equipment as their predominant voting method for the 2004 general election, while an estimated 21 percent used central count optical scan predominantly. Figure 1 shows the percentages of jurisdictions using optical scan equipment as the predominant voting method by jurisdiction size. While all sizes of jurisdictions had plans to acquire both precinct count and central count optical scan systems for the 2006 general election, small jurisdictions showed a strong preference for acquiring precinct count optical scan systems (estimated at 28 percent of small jurisdictions) compared with DREs (13 percent) and central count optical scan (4 percent). DREs capture votes electronically without the use of paper ballots. For the 2004 general election, we estimated that about 7 percent of all local jurisdictions used DREs predominantly, although 30 percent of all large jurisdictions used them as the predominant voting method. DREs come in two basic types: pushbutton or touchscreen, with pushbutton being the older technology. The two types vary considerably in appearance, as shown in figure 3. Pushbutton and touchscreen units differ significantly in the way they present ballots to the voter. With the pushbutton type, all ballot information is presented on a single “full-face” ballot. For example, a ballot may have 50 buttons on a 3 by 3 foot ballot, with a candidate or issue next to each button. In contrast, touchscreen DREs display ballot information on an electronic display screen. For both pushbutton and touchscreen types, the ballot information is programmed onto an electronic storage medium, which is then uploaded to the machine. For touchscreens, ballot information can be displayed in color and can incorporate pictures of the candidates. Because the ballot space on a touchscreen is much smaller than on a pushbutton machine, voters who use touchscreens must page through the ballot information. Both touchscreen and pushbutton DREs can accommodate multilingual ballots. Despite differences between pushbutton and touchscreen DREs, the two types have some similarities, such as how the voter interacts with the voting equipment.