Voting Systems: Federal Role

1
Voting SystemsFederal Role

• Eric FischerCongressional Research Service
• Library of Congress

2
Main Points

• Elections historically administered at the state
  and local levelminimal federal role
• Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA)
  substantially increases federal role
• HAVA will substantially impact voter experience
• Significant issues remain

3
Situation Before HAVA

• Federal regulations largely limited to civil
  rights matters
• Multilingual ballots
• Accessibility for disabled
• Voluntary voting system standards created by
  election administration community
• Virtually no government money for RD

4
What Happened?
5
(No Transcript)
6
What HAVA Does

• Establishes independent federal agency to assist
  in election administration
• Sets federal requirements for voting systems.
• Authorizes federal funding
• Provides statutory basis for voluntary standards,
  with involvement of NIST.

7
Election Assistance Commission

• Administer grant programs
• Develop guidelines for new requirements
• Provide for testing and certification of voting
  systems
• Study election issues
• Includes report, in consultation with NIST, on
  application of human factors research to voting
  systems.

8
Voting System Requirements

• Error correction by voters
• Manual auditing of election tallies
• Full accessibility for disabled personsat least
  one machine per polling place
• Maintain voter privacy and ballot confidentiality
  
• Alternative languages
• Error-rate standards

9
HAVA Funding
10
Issues

• Funding
• Adherence to requirements
• Role of Commission
• Role of scientific community

11
The Future?
12
(No Transcript)
13
Thank You

• Eric Fischer
• phone [phone]
• email efischer_at_crs.loc.gov