The Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) may not be well-known, but it plays a crucial role in the process of standards-setting in the field of voting technology testing and certification. About a year ago, the TGDC announced that it was going to convene a series of public working groups as part of a new approach to updating the federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG). Late last month, the TGDC issued a draft project charter for VVSG version 2.0 that attempts to define both the scope of the project and lay out a way forward.
The first key piece of the draft charter is the statement of objectives:
In order to align with the goals articulated by both the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) and the EAC Future VVSG Working Group, this Committee agrees that the primary objectives of Version 2.0 of the VVSG shall be:
• To assess the ability of the election systems to correctly execute secure, usable and accessible elections in order to provide assurance to voters that the election is an accurate reflection of the voters’ will.
• To enable, not obstruct or impede, innovation and needed response to changing statutes, rules, jurisdictional and voters’ needs.
• To create a set of implementable guidelines that allows deployment of systems by jurisdictions constrained by election calendars, schedules and budgetary restrictions.
• To facilitate the interoperability of election systems.
• To facilitate an open and transparent process that allows voters and election jurisdictions to assess the performance and capability of the election systems.
• To provide a set of testable requirements that jurisdictions can understand and use to evaluate the performance of election systems and to procure new systems.
Full Article: TGDC Releases Draft Project Charter for New Voting System Standards | Election Academy.