Election Data Standards Requirements: Getting on with what we

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Election Data Standards RequirementsGetting on
with what weve got

• John L. McCarthy, volunteer
• Verified Voting Foundation

Common Elections Data Format Workshop National
Institute for Standards and Technology Gaithersbur
g, Maryland 29-30 October, 2009
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Overview Review Background for election data
standards

• Who needs uses election data? (clients)
• What kinds of election data are required?
• When are election data needed for what purposes?
• What objectives would data standards help meet?
• How are these needs currently being met?
• in the United States?
• In other countries?
• What characterizes good data format standards?
• Why cant we simply use EML ( extend as
  necessary)?
• OASIS Election Markup Language (dialect of W3C
  XML)

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Who needs uses election data ( how)?Potential
clients for election data standards

• Voting systems vendors and system developers
• component communications, system integration,
  testing, reporting
• Election officials local, state, and national
  (EAC, )
• ballot definition, testing, reporting,
  aggregation, auditing
• Election management consultants contractors
• systems integration, contract work for election
  officials
• News media (TV, radio, print, web)
• reporting results, predicting outcomes
  analyzing trends
• Candidates, political parties organizations
• deciding whether to concede, claim victory or
  dispute results
• Citizens, citizen organizations academic
  researchers
• pre and post election auditing, analyzing
  detailed results

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What kinds of election data are required?

• Election districts district boundaries
• Voter registration information eligible voter
  lists
• Candidate nominations approved candidate lists
• Referendum options and approved options lists
• Ballot definition information (for each
  jurisdiction)
• Election vote records, counts, results, and
  statistics
• Cast Vote Records (CVR) for each individual
  ballot
• including outcomes for each voting opportunity
  (choice)
• e.g., vote recorded, blank, too many choices,
  unrecognized
• Logs from each individual piece of voting
  equipment
• Audit information pertinent to all the above
  categories

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What detailed components are needed for vote
tabulation audits?

• GEOGRAPHIC IDENTIFIERS
• State, County
• Sub-county jurisdiction(s), if any (e.g., city,
  township)
• Precinct
• Other Aggregation Unit Identifiers (e.g., state
  assembly district, water district)
• Voting Method (early, absentee, in-precinct,
  provisional,
• Ballot Type and/or party (for primary elections)
• FOR EACH CONTEST
• Contest (e.g., Governor, State Assembly, City
  Council, Water Board)
• Choice (candidate or position Y/N)
• Summary records typically contain counts for each
  choice and some systems cast vote records for
  individual ballots may show how each choice was
  counted -- vote, blank, too many choices
  (overvote), or unrecognized mark.
• SoSs others also need standards for various
  types of election audit reports

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When are election data needed?

• Preceding an election
• system development testing
• logic and accuracy testing test results
• jurisdiction boundaries, ballot types, voting
  places
• ballot design and contents (candidates, ballot
  measures, etc.)
• registered eligible voters
• During an election
• problem reports
• individuals who have voted
• Election night
• detailed vote counts by polling place, type
  (in-person, absentee), candidate, ballot measure
  choices, overvotes, undervotes
• Individual Cast Vote Records (CVR) for each
  ballot
• Before certification of final results
• audit results, including resolution of any
  discrepancies found

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Objectives that election data standards can help
us achieve

• Timely Transparent Reporting
• aggregation within local jurisdictions from
  local to state
• to media, interested organizations the general
  public
• to help support pre and post-election auditing
• Lower costs improved Accuracy
• Improve transparency testing of ballot
  definition
• connect registration, pollbooks, and reporting
• facilitate transition to electronic
  record-keeping
• Interoperability
• between components from a single vendor
• among different components from different vendors
• Auditability
• detailed data available immediately following
  each election
• machine-readable reports broken down in arbitrary
  ways

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How are these needs currently being met?

• In the United States
• very little standardization
• data exchange via poorly documented proprietary
  formats
• election management systems produce human
  readable reports
• some exceptions
• CA SoS media feed 2008, 2009
• IL translation programs for EAC data collection
  grant program
• In other countries
• Council of Europe recommends EML for
  interoperability (2004)
• Australian Electoral Commission EML Media Feed
  (since 2007)
• UK e-voting pilots and CORE registration project
  use EML
• Belgium uses EML for local elections in Flanders
  (2006-7)
• Others?

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What kinds of data and metadata do current
commercial vote tabulation systems provide?
Human Readable Reports
e.g., Hart-Intercivic (Crystal Reports)
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What would characterize good election data
format standards?

• Machine-readable, structured components
• separate elements for each distinct type of
  information
• (e.g., state, county, precinct, type, contest,
  candidate, undervotes)
• easy to render into different formats
• modular structures/schemas for different kinds of
  data
• (e.g., ballot definition, geography, tabulation
  results, )
• Well-defined and documented data elements
  structures
• preferably defined by data verifiable via
  formal schema
• Quasi-human-readable
• data volume does not require serious compression
  (e.g., ASN.1)
• easy to render into different human-readable
  machine formats
• Compatible with tools for translation, rendering
  storage
• e.g., XML style sheets, schema, databases web
  services XSLT
• Developed through standards consensus process
• input and discussion from all stake-holders,
  trial use, etc.

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Doesnt EML (Election Markup Language) meet most
if not all of these requirements?

• Dialect of XML (current lingua franca for data
  exchange)
• Developed by OASIS Technical Committee (since
  2001)
• participation by vendors and election experts
• currently completing work on version 6.0 (still
  time for feedback!)
• OASIS will propose EML 6.0 as ISO standard early
  in 2010
• Flexible, extensible, modular framework
• version 6.0 includes new elements features to
  support US voting
• V 6.0 meets most known election requirements
• Already used by a number of organizations
  jurisdictions
• California Australia media feeds, etc.
• ESS, Hart-Intercivic (EDX XML variant), EDS,
  IBM, more in Europe
• For more info, see http//www.oasis-open.org/commi
  ttees/ tc_home.php?wg_abbrevelectionexpository

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What are primary objections, barriers, and
counter-arguments to use of EML?

• Too new ?
• development of multiple versions since 2001
• used successfully in growing number of
  jurisdictions
• Competing approaches standards ?
• IEEE Voting Systems Electronic Data Interchange
  Project 1622
• temporarily deactivated because TC "failed to
  achieve balance"
• Comma-delimited spreadsheet format
• No schema to enforce data input requirements
• Require multiple tables to supported nested
  repeating groups
• Would have to develop table and column
  definitions, etc.
• Too complex and/or missing features ?
• can ignore modules that are not applicable
• Easy to extend and add new features using XML
  (e.g. audit reports)
• Implementation costs ?
• 3 major vendors already use EML or XML in
  significant ways
• Lots of tools to support XML development and use

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The need is urgentNow is the time to act

• Election auditing requires a single standard set
  of formats
• statement from last weeks meeting on election
  auditing at ASA
• States are beginning to implement electronic
  reporting
• California 6 county experiment plans to expand
  to statewide
• Illinois plans statewide integrated voting
  elections system
• Need for national archive of election data
• for policy makers, legislators, academic
  researchers
• current election day survey data is inadequate
• not timely, detailed data not easily available in
  standard formats
• EAC data collection grant project results can
  provide insights
• If EML is deficient, we can propose revisions for
  v6
• but should do so in the next couple of months

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Opportunities for participation

• Election Data Standards Email list ( google
  sites wiki)
• electiondatastandards_at_verifiedvoting.org
• Try new election data software help improve it
• Auditing software from CO (McBurnett), UC
  Berkeley (Stark),
• VTS translation software from IL?
• EML enhancements for version 6
• OASIS Elections Voter Services Technical
  Committee
• Joe Hall, David Webber, others
• www.oasis-open.org/committees/election/
• NIST, TGDC, VVSG
• Urge EAC and/or NIST to become active members of
  OASIS TC
• create documentation guidelines to facilitate
  adoption

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Thanks to .

• Verified Voting Foundation President Pam Smith
• Election Data Standards and Auditing Lists
• American Statistical Association Steve Pierson
• David Webber, OVS/OASIS
• John Sebes, Open Source Digital Voting Foundation
• Neal McBurnett, Boulder, Colorado
• Scott Hilkert Catalyst Consulting associates,
  Chicago
• participants in last weeks election auditing
  meeting

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Example XML data fragment

• lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"utf-8" ?gt
• - ltelection type"GE" name"General Election"
  date"11/4/2008"gt
• - ltstate id"IL" name"Illinois"gt
• - ltjurisdiction id"2402" name"Alexander County"
  federalId"1700300000"gt
• - ltcontest id"4" name"12TH CONGRESS"
  polling"3167" absentee"0" early"487" grace"0"
  provisional"0" total"3654"gt
•   ltspecialCount type"blankVotes" polling"0"
  absentee"0" early"0" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"0" /gt
• - ltspecialCount type"underVotes" polling"283"
  absentee"0" early"88" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"371"gt
•   ltprecinct name"CAIRO 1" polling"57"
  absentee"0" early"14" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"71" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"CAIRO 2" polling"37"
  absentee"0" early"21" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"58" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"CAIRO 3" polling"16"
  absentee"0" early"14" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"30" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"CAIRO 4" polling"22"
  absentee"0" early"14" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"36" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"CAIRO 5" polling"19"
  absentee"0" early"9" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"28" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"CACHE" polling"9" absentee"0"
  early"5" grace"0" provisional"0" total"14" /gt
  
•   ltprecinct name"SANDUSKY" polling"7"
  absentee"0" early"2" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"9" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"TAMMS" polling"39"
  absentee"0" early"1" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"40" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"MCCLURE" polling"29"
  absentee"0" early"2" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"31" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"THEBES" polling"19"
  absentee"0" early"1" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"20" /gt
•   ltprecinct name"OLIVE BRANCH" polling"29"
  absentee"0" early"5" grace"0" provisional"0"
  total"34" /gt
•   lt/specialCountgt