This style guide is a product of the voting system standards and test methods research at NIST. The most recent version of the tech. standard, the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines of Aug. 2007, contains requirements for the usability of documentation used by poll workers and election support staff. The approach to testing these requirements has two components: (1) Style guide incorporating best practices for voting system documentation; (2) Test protocol for voting system test labs. to use to measure the usability of instructions supplied by voting system manufacturers for election workers. This style guide sets out guidelines for voting system manufacturers to use to implement best practices in their documentation for poll workers and election support staff.

This document discusses guidelines for writing voting system documentation. It focuses on documentation for setting up voting systems, conducting polling, and shutting down and auditing voting systems.

The goal of this style guide is to provide specific guidance to improve the usability of documentation used by poll workers and election support staff. The Voting System Documentation Style Guide incorporates best practices for writing documentation as it applies to voting systems. The guidelines are intended for voting system manufacturers to help them to implement best practices in their products. In addition, technical writers, system developers, and usability professionals in other domains may also find this document helpful.