( REDWOOD CITY ) San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum has been asked to serve as a charter voting member of Voting Systems Performance Rating (VSPR), a national project that has been formed to develop useful, objective and comprehensive performance rating standards for all U.S. voting systems. The Chair of the U.S. Federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC), DeForest B. Soares, Jr. asked the technical community for assistance in determining new standards. VSPR is the response to his request; they will tackle the new scientific and technical challenges posed by electronic voting and to improve the qualitative review of all voting systems.

VSPR is comprised of six Council Groups, only four of the Council Groups have voting rights -- Advocates & Social Scientists, Technology/Security Experts, Elections Officials/Experts and Vendors who will focus on the areas of voting system security, privacy, reliability and accessibility. Slocum will serve on the seven-member Council representing Elections Officials/Experts and has been named Co-Chair of the Election Reform Committee. The design of the organization is democratic in that anyone can join, read the reports and findings, and contribute, but only Council’s voting members will establish the standards. All discussions and Request for Review (RFRS) will be published online at www.vspr.org for public review.

Slocum placed the need of VSPR in the context of the last election. “Lost votes and security questions point out the flaws in the standards that we use to certify our election systems,” Slocum explained. “Existing standards which guide manufacturers and are used by independent testing agencies certify voting equipment (software, middleware and hardware) establish a single pass/fail threshold for all systems. There are no qualitative standards that rate voting machine features. Manufacturers simply meet the test (or not).”

Rather than evaluating voting systems itself, the mission of VSPR is to produce specifications for objective and repeatable tests that can readily be applied by independent labs or even vendors. Separate tests are envisioned for security, privacy, transparency, accessibility, usability, accuracy, and reliability. These performance-based tests will be available for use in purchasing decisions, sort of the equivalent of a “Consumer Reports Guide for Election Officials” on various voting systems.

“Election administration is operating at some very different levels of technical sophistication in this country. Frankly, what is needed is a way to suitably inform purchasing decisions. My hope is that VSPR will succeed in developing objective ratings for various dimensions that will prove truly useful in informing those decisions,” Slocum explained.

One of the goals of VSPR is to foster an unleashing of innovation in a merit-based competition, a truly American approach to problem-solving. “What could be a more fitting process for improving the machinery of our democratic system? If we shine the light on the marketplace, critique the products and encourage people to build a better mousetrap, ultimately, our democracy wins,” Slocum said. “I am honored to be a part of what will restore public confidence in voting in the 21st century.”

Background:

There are 3, 141 county Election Officials (including parishes in Louisiana, boroughs and the District of Columbia) in the United States who determine how elections are conducted in their jurisdictions. All work within the framework of federal and state laws, but all have the freedom to choose the voting system(s) their constituents will use. In the November 2004 Presidential Election, there were 7 different kinds of systems (optical scan, electronic, lever, pre-scored punchcard, paper, datavote and mixed systems). These systems are manufactured by three major vendors and a handful of smaller vendors.

The only state that used DREs (electronic voting machines) with a verified paper audit trail was Nevada. All other states and counties that used the DREs did so without a paper backup verification trail. In some contests, votes were lost. In North Carolina, the Election Officials were unable to establish a clear winner and the State Agricultural Commission post remains vacant while officials are deciding whether to hold another election, a partial election or seek an interim appointee.