Starting the Voting Systems Data Standards Task Group VSDSTG

1
Starting the Voting Systems Data Standards Task
Group (VSDS-TG)

• July, 2002

2
Answering the Key Questions

• Who are the stakeholders?
• What is our communication plan?
• What is our scope (project charter)?
• What process will we choose to reach our
  objective?
• What are the roles/functions to be performed in
  working this process and who will fill them?

3
Who are the stakeholders

• Governmental
• Federal
• FEC/ECA/VSS
• DOJ
• State
• State Election Regulatory Departments
• State Consultants (Brit Williams, Accenture,
  etc.)
• Local
• County Election Offices Departments
• City Election Offices Departments

4
Who are the stakeholders (cont)

• Governance and Standards Bodies
• IEEE
• ANSI
• NSSN
• NIST
• OASIS
• NASED

5
Who are the stakeholders (cont)

• Vendors
• Elections Systems Software
• Global/Diebold
• Sequoia Pacific/De La Rue
• Hart InterCivic
• Election.com
• VoteHere.net
• Others?

6
Who are the stakeholders (cont)

• The Voting Public (open forum)
• Others?

7
What is our Communication Plan

• Process to contact/invite participation
• Process to communicate group mission and status
  to stakeholder groups
• internal IEEE
• external IEEE (Stakeholder groups above)
• How do we communicate within our group?
• Email
• Web Conference

8
What is our Scope?

• Problem Statement - The "Election System" is
  composed of registration systems, candidate
  filing processes, petition systems, ballot
  definition, voting systems, tabulation systems,
  reporting systems and more. The data exchanged
  amongst these components is vast, but must be
  precise. Multiple suppliers, technologies,
  stakeholders and organizations count on the
  accurate interpretation of the data involved and
  between these systems. The lack of a common
  standard for the definition of data between these
  functions and systems has hindered
  interoperability, resulted in complexity, limited
  innovation, and could lead to misinterpretation
  of election information.
• Ideal State - A standard is created promoting a
  common definition of the data contained within
  the "Election System" and in the election
  industry. This standard would promote
  interoperability amongst functional components,
  reduce complexity, spur innovation, and provide
  greater assurance in an election system

9
Scope - Sizing the Problem(Defining the Problem
Domain)

• Data Interchange/Exchange Only - the data
  exchanged between two voting systems
• Ballot
• Results
• Logical View of all Voting Data
• Municipality/Jurisdictional Information
• Contest Relationships
• Other Voting Registration (VR) Systems Info
• Other reporting informational attributes

10
What is the process we follow to arrive at a
conclusion?

• Scope Defined
• Straw Man (Men) proposals
• Definition of Terms/Synonyms
• ERD Model
• Entities
• Relationships
• Attributes
• Other?

11
Process Roles

• Project Manager
• Moderator / Process Arbiter
• Terminology Manager
• (defining commonly used terms)
• Scribe
• Participant(s)

12
Issues and Challenges

• Variance of terminology
• Variance of State and local election laws
• Keeping things at a conceptual level - avoiding
  technologies and topologies
• Building consensus within such a varied group of
  interests
• Others?