The 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) created the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and, among other things, assigned the Commission responsibility for testing and certifying voting systems. In view of concerns about voting systems and the important role EAC plays in certifying them, the author was asked to determine whether EAC has: (1) defined an effective approach to testing and certifying voting systems; (2) followed its defined approach; and (3) developed an effective mechanism to track problems with certified systems and used the results to improve its approach. Includes recommendations. Charts and tables.

This document provides guidance and resources for how to test voting systems against the usability and accessibility requirements in the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) 2.0. The requirements include Principles 2.2 and 5 through 8. The goal of those requirements is to ensure that voting systems certified to VVSG 2.0 are accessible and usable for election workers and voters including voters with disabilities so that every voter can mark, review, cast, and verify their ballot independently and privately. The primary audiences for this guide are the voting system test laboratory organizations who perform certification testing, to help them understand some of the specialized tests required, and organizations in the design and development process as they build and prepare a voting system for certification testing.

The federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) are a set of technical standards for voting systems that use computers to assist in recording or counting votes. They were released in December 2005 and will go into effect in December 2007. They will replace the 2002 version of the federal voluntary Voting Systems Standards (VSS). The VVSG are a partial revision of the VSS, with revision focused mainly on accessibility, usability, and security. Several issues have been raised about the VVSG that may require congressional attention. Among them is the question of timing. Some vendors claim that there needs to be more time for technology development before the new guidelines become effective; some activists argue that problems with voting systems, and federal requirements, demand more rapid implementation of the VVSG. It is generally considered unlikely that the guidelines will have much direct impact on voting systems used in 2006. One exception may be provisions relating to paper-ballot audit trails, which several states now require to be used in conjunction with electronic voting systems. The VVSG will be voluntary, but some observers believe that a regulatory approach would be more appropriate given the importance of elections to the democratic process. However, since many states require that voting systems be certified, vendors are expected to treat the VVSG in the same way they have treated the VSS -- as effectively mandatory. For more detail, see CRS Report RL33146, Federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines: Summary and Analysis of Issues, by Eric A. Fischer. This report will be updated in response to major developments.