Testimony on Voter Verification

Abstract

In the past five years, following the 2000 Florida election fiasco, the voting technologies used in the United States have undergone a significant change. The use of direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines has increased and provided great opportunities for advances in accessibility and voting user interface design. Auditing steps of elections is important. Demonstrating that a computer program in a optical scan or DRE system is collecting them correctly must be done by testing and might be improved by redundant media created by separate means (electronic, or physical). One audit trail proposal is for the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). The VVPAT system adds a printer to a machine and adds an extra step to the end of the voting process when the voter prints out and approves a paper receipt of their vote. We have introduced the idea of a voter verified audio audit transcript trail (VVAATT). A VVAATT system adds audio feedback to the voting process. The audio feedback is recorded and the recording serves as an audit for the election.