While many Americans are familiar with some of the high-profile issues in voting and elections systems, not many are aware that some of the best and brightest computer science and engineering professionals are dedicated to finding improvements. As one can imagine, it is a major undertaking to bring the voting systems of a nation of 300 million citizens from punch cards to the latest technology of the 21st Century. Recently, U.S. Vote Foundation (US Vote) spoke with John P. Wack and Dr. Arthur M. Keller, members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Voting Systems Standards Committee (VSSC). Commonly referred to as VSSC/1622, their working group is building a common data format for election systems.
Chairman of the VSSC, Wack, is a voting standards researcher and developer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He has been working on the VSSC/1622 project, and its predecessors, since 2009.
Keller, VSSC Standards Coordinator, joined the project in 2007 and has served as its chair and vice chair. He is a researcher in the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In addition to his work with UC Santa Cruz, Keller is the managing partner of Minerva Consulting.
Full Article: electionlineWeekly.