EML v6 : EAC REQUIREMENTS

David

One aspect that we really need to do our homework on before we finalise v6 is the ongoing debate around the EAC’s Voting Systems Requirements. The story as far as I know it to date is as follows:

The EAC put out for public comment the draft requirements prepared by its TDGC committee, see http://www.eac.gov/files/vvsg/Final-TGDC-VVSG-08312007.pdf and in particular Section 6.6 Integratability and Data Export/Interchange.

The majority of public comments received favoured a much more positive line on the sue of an open standard for data interchange and supported the use of EML in that context.

The NIST recommendations to the EAC committee following the public comments is available at http://www.eac.gov/program-areas/voting-systems/voluntary-voting-guidelines/index_html/?searchterm=voting%20systems%20guidelines and not surprisingly they are rather dismissive of EML saying it’s not up to the job etc.

At a recent meeting of the committee EDX was brought into the equation as the more likely standard to use. Where and how that has suddenly emerged from as it wasn’t part of the original consultation document I don’t know. My inside sources however told me that there was no discussion on this point at the meeting.

The EAC committee has not finalised its new Guidelines but instead has gone off down the road of looking into testing and certification.

I am trying to get Laurent Liscia to take up his seat on the EAC committee.

So the least we should do is double-check that we can meet all the requirements set out in the original TDGC document and the subsequent NIST report. Thereafter we will have to rely on politics and our supporters to press our case plus hopefully in the not too distant future being able to cite ourselves as the ISO standard for e-voting.

John

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