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entitled 'Elections: Federal Efforts to Improve Security and 
Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems Are Under Way, but Key 
Activities Need to Be Completed' which was released on October 21, 
2005. 

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Report to Congressional Requesters: 

September 2005: 

Elections: 

Federal Efforts to Improve Security and Reliability of Electronic 
Voting Systems Are Under Way, but Key Activities Need to Be Completed: 

[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-956]: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-05-956, a report to congressional requesters: 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 established the Election Assistance 
Commission (EAC) to help improve state and local administration of 
federal elections and authorized funding for state and local 
governments to expand their use of electronic voting systems. EAC began 
operations in January 2004. However, reported problems with electronic 
voting systems have led to questions about the security and reliability 
of these systems. GAO was requested to (1) determine the significant 
security and reliability concerns identified about electronic voting 
systems, (2) identify recommended practices relevant to ensuring the 
security and reliability of these systems, and (3) describe actions 
taken or planned to improve their security and reliability. 

What GAO Found: 

While electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the election 
process, numerous entities have raised concerns about their security 
and reliability, citing instances of weak security controls, system 
design flaws, inadequate system version control, inadequate security 
testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and 
vague or incomplete voting system standards (see below for examples). 
It is important to note that many of these concerns were based on 
specific system makes and models or a specific jurisdiction’s election, 
and there is no consensus among election officials and other experts on 
their pervasiveness. Nevertheless, some have caused problems in 
elections and therefore merit attention. 

Federal organizations and nongovernmental groups have issued both 
election-specific recommended practices for improving the voting 
process and more general guidance intended to help organizations manage 
information systems’ security and reliability. These recommended 
practices and guidelines (applicable throughout the voting system life 
cycle) include having vendors build security controls and audit trails 
into their systems during development, and having election officials 
specify security requirements when acquiring systems. Other suggested 
practices include testing and certifying systems against national 
voting system standards. 

The federal government has begun efforts intended to improve life cycle 
management of electronic voting systems and thereby improve their 
security and reliability. Specifically, EAC has led efforts to (1) 
draft changes to existing federal voluntary standards for voting 
systems, including provisions addressing security and reliability; (2) 
develop a process for certifying voting systems; (3) establish a 
program to accredit independent laboratories to test electronic voting 
systems; and (4) develop a library and clearinghouse for information on 
state and local elections and systems. However, these actions are 
unlikely to have a significant effect in the 2006 federal election 
cycle because important changes to the voting standards have not yet 
been completed, the system certification and laboratory accreditation 
programs are still in development, and a system software library has 
not been updated or improved since the 2004 election. Further, EAC has 
not consistently defined specific tasks, processes, and time frames for 
completing these activities; as a result, it is unclear when their 
results will be available to assist state and local election officials. 

Examples of Voting System Vulnerabilities and Problems

* Cast ballots, ballot definition files, and audit logs could be 
modified.
* Supervisor functions were protected with weak or easily guessed 
passwords.
* Systems had easily picked locks and power switches that were exposed 
and unprotected.	
* Local jurisdictions misconfigured their electronic voting systems, 
leading to election day problems.
* Voting systems experienced operational failures during elections.
* Vendors installed uncertified electronic voting systems.

Source: GAO analysis of recent reports and studies. 

[End of table] 

What GAO Recommends: 

To help ensure the security and reliability of electronic voting 
systems, GAO is recommending that EAC define specific tasks, processes, 
and time frames for improving the national voting systems standards, 
testing capabilities, and management support available to state and 
local election officials. In commenting on a draft of this report, EAC 
agreed with the recommendations and stated that the commission has 
initiatives under way or planned in these areas. The commission also 
sought additional clarification and context on reported problems. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-956. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact David Powner at (202) 512-
9286 or pownerd@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

Significant Concerns Have Been Raised about the Security and 
Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems: 

Recommended Practices Address Electronic Voting Systems' Security and 
Reliability: 

National Initiatives Are Under Way to Improve Voting System Security 
and Reliability, but Key Activities Need to Be Completed: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Selected Recommended Practices for Voting System Security 
and Reliability: 

Appendix III: Summary of Selected Guidance on Information Technology 
Security and Reliability: 

Appendix IV: Resolutions Related to Voting System Security and 
Reliability: 

Appendix V: Comments from the Election Assistance Commission: 

Appendix VI: Comments from the National Institute of Standards and 
Technology: 

Appendix VII: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Bibliography: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Common Types of Security and Reliability Concerns Viewed in 
Terms of the Voting System Life Cycle: 

Table 2: Federal Initiatives Related to Improving the Security and 
Reliability of Voting Systems: 

Table 3: Nongovernmental Initiatives to Improve Voting System Security 
and Reliability: 

Table 4: EAC Security and Reliability Practices for All Types of Voting 
Systems: 

Table 5: EAC Security and Reliability Practices for Optical Scan Voting 
Systems: 

Table 6: EAC Security and Reliability Practices for Direct Recording 
Electronic Voting Systems: 

Table 7: NIST Security and Reliability Practices for Electronic Voting 
Systems: 

Table 8: Brennan Center Example Security and Reliability Practices for 
Direct Recording Electronic Voting Systems: 

Table 9: Election Center Security and Reliability Practices for 
Elections: 

Table 10: National Task Force on Election Reform Security and 
Reliability Practices for Voting Systems: 

Table 11: Caltech/MIT Security and Reliability Practices for Voting 
Systems: 

Table 12: Caltech/MIT Security and Reliability Practices for Electronic 
Voting Systems: 

Table 13: League of Women Voters Security and Reliability Practices for 
All Voting Systems: 

Table 14: League of Women Voters Security and Reliability Practices for 
Optical Scan Voting Systems: 

Table 15: League of Women Voters Security and Reliability Practices for 
Direct Recording Electronic Voting Systems: 

Table 16: A Compendium of Recommended Mitigation Measures to Address 
Selected Concerns with Electronic Voting Systems' Security and 
Reliability: 

Table 17: Examples of NIST Publications Addressing System Security and 
Reliability: 

Table 18: Resolutions Related to Security and Reliability of Electronic 
Voting Systems and Plans for Implementing Them in Future Standards: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Stages of an Election Process: 

Figure 2: Precinct-Count Optical Scan Tabulator and Central-Count 
Optical Scan Tabulator: 

Figure 3: Two Types of DRE Systems--Pushbutton and Touchscreen: 

Figure 4: States Requiring the Use of Federal Voting System Standards 
and States Requiring National Certification Testing: 

Figure 5: A Voting System Life Cycle Model: 

Abbreviations: 

COTS: commercial off-the-shelf: 

DRE: Direct Recording Electronic: 

EAC: Election Assistance Commission: 

HAVA: Help America Vote Act: 

IT: information technology: 

NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technology: 

TGDC: Technical Guidelines Development Committee: 

Letter September 21, 2005: 

Congressional Requesters: 

After the 2000 elections, Congress, the media, and others cited 
numerous instances of problems with the election process. In light of 
these concerns, we produced a series of reports in which we examined 
virtually every aspect of the election process, including challenges 
associated with electronic voting systems.[Footnote 1] In these 
reports, we emphasized the contributions and necessary interactions of 
people, process, and technology to address these challenges. 
Subsequently, in October 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote 
Act (HAVA), which authorized funding for local and state governments to 
make improvements in election administration, including upgrading 
antiquated voting systems. In addition, HAVA created the Election 
Assistance Commission (EAC) to provide support for election 
improvements and to administer payments to states under the act. As 
states have expanded their use of electronic voting systems, the media 
and others have reported problems with these systems that have caused 
some to question whether they are secure and reliable. 

In view of the importance and growing role of electronic voting 
systems, you asked us to (1) determine the significant security and 
reliability concerns that have been identified about these voting 
systems; (2) identify recommended practices relevant to ensuring the 
security and reliability of such systems; and (3) describe the actions 
that federal agencies and other organizations have taken, or plan to 
take, to improve their security and reliability. To determine concerns 
and recommended practices, we analyzed over 80 recent and relevant 
reports related to the security and reliability of electronic voting 
systems. We focused on systems and components associated with vote 
casting and counting, including those that define electronic ballots, 
transmit voting results among election locations, and manage groups of 
voting machines. We assessed the various types of voting system issues 
reported to determine categories of concerns. We discussed the reports, 
concerns, and recommended practices with elections officials, citizen 
advocacy groups, and system security and testing experts, including 
members of GAO's Executive Council on Information Management and 
Technology.[Footnote 2] To describe actions to improve the security and 
reliability of electronic voting systems, we reviewed and analyzed 
pertinent documentation, such as EAC's draft voluntary voting system 
guidelines (which are expected to replace the 2002 voting system 
standards), and we attended public meetings and interviewed officials 
from EAC, its Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), and 
the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and 
Technology (NIST). We also identified activities being performed by 
citizen advocacy groups, academic and standards bodies, and others that 
are intended to improve the security and reliability of electronic 
voting systems, reviewed materials from these activities, and discussed 
them with representatives of these groups. Appendix I provides 
additional details on our objectives, scope, and methodology. We 
performed our work from January through August 2005 in the Washington, 
D.C., metropolitan area, in accordance with generally accepted 
government auditing standards. 

Results in Brief: 

While electronic voting systems hold promise for a more accurate and 
efficient election process, numerous entities have raised concerns 
about their security and reliability, citing instances of weak security 
controls, system design flaws, inadequate system version control, 
inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor 
security management, and vague or incomplete voting system standards, 
among other issues. For example, studies found (1) some electronic 
voting systems did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and 
it was possible to alter both without being detected; (2) it was 
possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so 
that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different 
candidate; and (3) vendors installed uncertified versions of voting 
system software at the local level. It is important to note that many 
of the reported concerns were drawn from specific system makes and 
models or from a specific jurisdiction's election, and that there is a 
lack of consensus among election officials and other experts on the 
pervasiveness of the concerns. Nevertheless, some of these concerns 
were reported to have caused local problems in federal elections-- 
resulting in the loss or miscount of votes--and therefore merit 
attention. 

Federal organizations and nongovernmental groups have issued 
recommended practices and guidance for improving the election process, 
including electronic voting systems, as well as general practices for 
the security and reliability of information systems. For example, in 
mid-2004, EAC issued a compendium of practices recommended by election 
experts, including state and local election officials.[Footnote 3] This 
compendium includes approaches for making voting processes more secure 
and reliable through, for example, risk analysis of the voting process, 
poll worker security training, and chain of custody controls for 
election day operations, along with practices that are specific to 
ensuring the security and reliability of different types of electronic 
voting systems. As another example, in July 2004, the California 
Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
issued a report containing recommendations pertaining to testing 
equipment, retaining audit logs, and physically securing voting 
systems.[Footnote 4] In addition to such election-specific practices, 
numerous recommended practices are available that can be applied to any 
information system. For instance, we, NIST, and others have issued 
guidance that emphasizes the importance of incorporating security and 
reliability into the life cycle of information systems through 
practices related to security planning and management, risk management, 
and procurement.[Footnote 5] The recommended practices in these 
election-specific and information technology (IT) focused documents 
provide valuable guidance that, if implemented effectively, should help 
improve the security and reliability of voting systems. 

Since the passage of HAVA in 2002, the federal government has begun a 
range of actions that are expected to improve the security and 
reliability of electronic voting systems. Specifically, after beginning 
operations in January 2004, EAC has led efforts to (1) draft changes to 
the existing federal voluntary standards[Footnote 6] for voting 
systems, including provisions related to security and reliability, (2) 
develop a process for certifying, decertifying, and recertifying voting 
systems, (3) establish a program to accredit the national independent 
testing laboratories that test electronic voting systems against the 
federal voluntary standards, and (4) develop a software library and 
clearinghouse for information on state and local elections and systems. 
However, these actions are unlikely to have a significant effect in the 
2006 federal election cycle because the changes to the voluntary 
standards have not yet been completed, the system certification and 
laboratory accreditation programs are still in development, and the 
software library has not been updated or improved since the 2004 
elections. Further, EAC has not defined tasks, processes, and time 
frames for completing these activities. As a result, it is unclear when 
the results will be available to assist state and local election 
officials. In addition to the federal government's activities, other 
organizations have actions under way that are intended to improve the 
security and reliability of electronic voting systems. These actions 
include developing and obtaining international acceptance for voting 
system standards, developing voting system software in an open source 
environment (i.e., not proprietary to any particular company), and 
cataloging and analyzing reported problems with electronic voting 
systems. 

To improve the security and reliability of electronic voting systems, 
we are recommending that EAC establish tasks, processes, and time 
frames for improving the federal voluntary voting system standards, 
testing capabilities, and management support available to state and 
local election officials. 

EAC and NIST provided written comments on a draft of this report (see 
apps. V and VI). EAC commissioners agreed with our recommendations and 
stated that actions on each are either under way or intended. NIST's 
director agreed with the report's conclusions. In addition to their 
comments on our recommendations, EAC commissioners expressed three 
concerns with our use of reports produced by others to identify issues 
with the security and reliability of electronic voting systems. 
Specifically, EAC sought (1) additional clarification on our sources, 
(2) context on the extent to which voting system problems are systemic, 
and (3) substantiation of claims in the reports issued by others. To 
address these concerns, we provided additional clarification of sources 
where applicable. Further, we note throughout our report that many 
issues involved specific system makes and models or circumstances in 
the elections of specific jurisdictions. We also note that there is a 
lack of consensus on the pervasiveness of the problems, due in part to 
a lack of comprehensive information on what system makes and models are 
used in jurisdictions throughout the country. Additionally, while our 
work focused on identifying and grouping problems and vulnerabilities 
identified in issued reports and studies, where appropriate and 
feasible, we sought additional context, clarification, and 
corroboration from experts, including election officials, security 
experts, and key reports' authors. EAC commissioners also expressed 
concern that we focus too much on the commission, and noted that it is 
one of many entities with a role in improving the security and 
reliability of voting systems. While we agree that EAC is one of many 
entities with responsibilities for improving the security and 
reliability of voting systems, we believe that our focus on EAC is 
appropriate, given its leadership role in defining voting system 
standards, in establishing programs both to accredit laboratories and 
to certify voting systems, and in acting as a clearinghouse for 
improvement efforts across the nation. EAC and NIST officials also 
provided detailed technical corrections, which we incorporated 
throughout the report as appropriate. 

Background: 

All levels of government share responsibility in the U.S. election 
process. At the federal level, Congress has authority under the 
Constitution to regulate presidential and congressional elections and 
to enforce prohibitions against specific discriminatory practices in 
all federal, state, and local elections. Congress has passed 
legislation that addresses voter registration, absentee voting, 
accessibility provisions for the elderly and handicapped, and 
prohibitions against discriminatory practices.[Footnote 7] 

At the state level, individual states are responsible for the 
administration of both federal elections and their own elections. 
States regulate the election process, including, for example, the 
adoption of voluntary voting system guidelines, the state certification 
and acceptance testing of voting systems, ballot access, registration 
procedures, absentee voting requirements, the establishment of voting 
places, the provision of election day workers, and the counting and 
certification of the vote. In total, the U.S. election process can be 
seen as an assemblage of 55 distinct election systems--those of the 50 
states, the District of Columbia, and the 4 U.S. territories. 

Further, although election policy and procedures are legislated 
primarily at the state level, states typically have decentralized 
voting processes, so that the details of administering elections are 
carried out at the city or county levels, and voting is done at the 
local level. As we reported in 2001, local election jurisdictions 
number more than 10,000, and their sizes vary enormously--from a rural 
county with about 200 voters to a large urban county, such as Los 
Angeles County, where the total number of registered voters for the 
2000 elections exceeded the registered voter totals in 41 
states.[Footnote 8] 

Administering an election is a year-round process involving the 
following stages: 

* Voter registration. Local election officials register eligible voters 
and maintain voter registration lists. This includes updating 
registrants' information and deleting the names of registrants who are 
no longer eligible to vote. 

* Absentee and early voting. Election officials design ballots and 
other systems to permit eligible people to vote in person or by mail 
before election day. Election officials also educate voters on how to 
vote by these methods. 

* Election administration and vote casting. Election officials prepare 
for an election by arranging for polling places, recruiting and 
training poll workers, designing ballots, and preparing and testing 
voting equipment for use in casting and tabulating votes. Election day 
activities include opening and closing polling places and assisting 
voters in casting votes. 

* Vote counting and certification. Election officials tabulate the cast 
ballots, determine whether and how to count ballots that cannot be read 
by the vote counting equipment, certify the final vote counts, and 
perform recounts, if required. 

As shown in figure 1, each stage of an election involves people, 
processes, and technology. 

Figure 1: Stages of an Election Process: 

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

Electronic Voting Systems Support Vote Casting and Counting: 

Electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the efficiency and 
accuracy of the election process by automating a manual process, 
providing flexibility for accommodating voters with special needs, and 
implementing controls to avoid errors by voters and election workers. 

In the United States today, most votes are cast and counted by one of 
two types of electronic voting systems: optical scan systems and direct 
recording electronic (DRE) systems. Such systems include the hardware, 
software, and firmware used to define ballots, cast and count votes, 
report or display election results, and maintain and produce audit 
trail information--as well as the documentation required to program, 
control, and support the equipment. A description of both technologies 
follows. 

Optical Scan Systems. Optical scan voting systems use electronic 
technology to tabulate paper ballots. Although optical scan technology 
has been in use for decades for such tasks as scoring standardized 
tests, it was not applied to voting until the 1980s. According to 
Election Data Services, Inc., a firm specializing in election data 
statistics, about 31 percent of registered voters voted on optical scan 
systems in the 2000 election, and about 35 percent of registered voters 
voted on optical scan systems in the 2004 election. 

An optical scan system is made up of computer-readable paper ballots, 
appropriate marking devices, privacy booths, and a computerized 
tabulation device. The ballot, which can be of various sizes, lists the 
names of the candidates and the issues. Voters record their choices 
using an appropriate writing instrument to fill in boxes or ovals, or 
to complete an arrow next to a candidate's name or the issue. In some 
states, the ballot may include a space for write-ins to be entered 
directly on the ballot. 

Optical scan ballots are tabulated by optical-mark-recognition 
equipment (see fig. 2), which counts the ballots by sensing or reading 
the marks on the ballot. Ballots can be counted at the polling place-- 
referred to as a precinct-count optical scan[Footnote 9]--or at a 
central location. If ballots are counted at the polling place, voters 
or election officials put the ballots into the tabulation equipment, 
which tallies the votes; these tallies can be captured in removable 
storage media that are transported to a central tally location, or they 
can be electronically transmitted from the polling place to the central 
tally location. If ballots are centrally counted, voters drop ballots 
into sealed boxes and election officials transfer the sealed boxes to 
the central location after the polls close, where election officials 
run the ballots through the tabulation equipment in the presence of 
observers. 

Figure 2: Precinct-Count Optical Scan Tabulator and Central-Count 
Optical Scan Tabulator: 

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

Software instructs the tabulation equipment how to assign each vote 
(i.e., to assign valid marks on the ballot to the proper candidate or 
issue). In addition to identifying the particular contests and 
candidates, the software can be configured to capture, for example, 
straight party voting and vote-for-no-more-than-N contests. Precinct- 
based optical scanners can also be programmed to detect overvotes 
(where the voter votes for two candidates for one office, for example, 
invalidating the vote) and undervotes (where the voter does not vote 
for all contests or issues on the ballot) and to take some action in 
response (rejecting the ballot, for instance). In addition, optical 
scan systems often use vote-tally software to tally the vote totals 
from one or more vote tabulation devices. 

If election officials program precinct-based optical scan systems to 
detect and reject overvotes and undervotes, voters can fix their 
mistakes before leaving the polling place. However, if voters are 
unwilling or unable to correct their ballots, a poll worker can 
manually override the program and accept the ballot, even though it has 
been overvoted or undervoted. If ballots are tabulated centrally, 
voters would not be able to correct any mistakes that may have been 
made. 

Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Systems. First introduced in the 
1970s, DREs capture votes electronically, without the use of paper 
ballots. According to Election Data Services, Inc., about 12 percent of 
voters used this type of technology in the 2000 elections and about 29 
percent of voters used this technology in the 2004 elections. 

DREs come in two basic models: pushbutton or touchscreen. The 
pushbutton model is the older technology and is larger and heavier than 
the touchscreen model (see fig. 3). 

Figure 3: Two Types of DRE Systems--Pushbutton and Touchscreen: 

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

Pushbutton and touchscreen models also differ significantly in the way 
they present ballots to the voter. With the pushbutton model, all 
ballot information is presented on a single "full-face" ballot. For 
example, a ballot may have 50 buttons on a 3-by 3-foot ballot, with a 
candidate or issue next to each button. In contrast, touchscreen DREs 
display the ballot information on an electronic display screen. For 
both pushbutton and touchscreen models, the ballot information is 
programmed onto an electronic storage medium, which is then uploaded to 
the machine. Both models rely on ballot definition files to tell the 
voting machine software how to display ballot information on the 
screen, interpret a voter's touches on a button or screen, and record 
and tally those selections as votes. Local jurisdictions can program 
these files before each election or outsource their programming to a 
vendor. For touchscreens, ballot information can be displayed in color 
and can incorporate pictures of the candidates. Because the ballot 
space on a touchscreen is much smaller than on a pushbutton machine, 
voters who use touchscreens must page through the ballot information. 

Despite their differences, the two DRE models have some similarities, 
such as how the voter interacts with the voting equipment. For 
pushbutton models, voters press a button next to the candidate or 
issue, which then lights up to indicate the selection. Similarly, 
voters using touchscreens make their selections by touching the screen 
next to the candidate or issue, which is then highlighted. When voters 
have finished making their selections on a touchscreen or a pushbutton 
model, they cast their votes by pressing a final "vote" button or 
screen. Until they hit this final button or screen, voters can change 
their selections. Both models also allow voters to write in candidates. 
While most DREs allow voters to type write-ins on a keyboard, some 
pushbutton types require voters to write the name on paper tape that is 
part of the device. Further, although these systems do not use paper 
ballots, they retain permanent electronic images of all the ballots, 
which can be stored on various media, including internal hard disk 
drives, flash cards, or memory cartridges. According to vendors, these 
ballot images can be printed and used for auditing and recounts. 

Some of the newer DREs use smart cards as a security feature. Smart 
cards are plastic devices--about the size of a credit card--that use 
integrated circuit chips to store and process data, much like a 
computer. These cards are generally used as a means to open polls and 
to authorize voter access to ballots. For instance, smart cards for 
some systems store program data on the election and are used to help 
set up the equipment; during setup, election workers verify that the 
card is for the proper election. Other systems are programmed to 
automatically activate when the voter inserts a smart card; the card 
brings up the correct ballot onto the screen. In general, the interface 
with the voter is very similar to that of an automated teller machine. 

Like optical scan devices, DREs require the use of software to program 
the various ballot styles and tally the votes, which is generally done 
through the use of memory cartridges or other media. The software is 
used to generate ballots for each precinct in the voting jurisdiction, 
which includes defining the ballot layout, identifying the contests in 
each precinct, and assigning candidates to contests. The software also 
is used to configure any special options, such as straight party voting 
and vote-for-no-more-than-N contests. In addition, for pushbutton 
models, the software assigns the buttons to particular candidates, and, 
for touchscreen models, the software defines the size and location on 
the screen where the voter makes the selection. Vote-tally software is 
often used to tally the vote totals from one or more units. 

DRE systems offer various configurations for tallying the votes. Some 
contain removable storage media that can be taken from the voting 
device and transported to a central location to be tallied. Others can 
be configured to electronically transmit the vote totals from the 
polling place to a central tally location. 

These systems are also designed not to allow overvotes. For example, if 
a voter selects a second choice in a two-way race, the first choice is 
deselected. In addition to this standard feature, different types of 
systems offer a variety of options, including many aimed at voters with 
disabilities. In our prior work,[Footnote 10] we reported that the 
following features were available on some models of DRE: 

* A "no-vote" option. If allowed by the state, this option helps avoid 
unintentional undervotes. This provides the voter with the option to 
select "no vote" (or abstain) on the display screen if the voter does 
not want to vote on a particular contest or issue. 

* A "review" feature. This feature requires voters to review each page 
of the ballot before pressing the button to cast the vote. 

* Visual enhancements. These features include, for example, color 
highlighting of ballot choices and candidate pictures. 

* Accommodations for voters with disabilities. Examples of options for 
voters who are blind include Braille keyboards and audio 
interfaces.[Footnote 11] At least one vendor reported that its DRE 
accommodates voters with neurological disabilities by offering head 
movement switches and "sip and puff" plug-ins.[Footnote 12] Another 
option is voice recognition capability, which allows voters to make 
selections orally. 

* An option to recover spoiled ballots. This feature allows voters to 
recast their votes after their original ballots are cast. For this 
option, every DRE at the poll site could be connected to a local area 
network. A poll official would void the original "spoiled" ballot 
through the administrative workstation, which is also connected to the 
local area network. The voter could then cast another ballot. 

* An option to provide printed receipts. This option, provided by a 
voter-verified paper audit trail system, provides the voter with a 
paper printout or ballot when the vote is cast. This feature is 
intended to provide voters and/or election officials with an 
opportunity to check what is printed against what is recorded and 
displayed. 

HAVA Is Expected to Enhance the Federal Role in Election Processes: 

In October 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to 
provide states with organizations, processes, and resources for 
improving the administration of future federal elections. The act also 
specified time frames for the availability of these organizations, 
processes, and resources. The act was intended, among other things, to 
encourage states to upgrade antiquated voting systems and technologies 
and to support the states in making federally mandated improvements to 
their voting systems, such as ensuring that voters can verify their 
votes before casting their ballot, providing records for manual 
auditing of voting systems, and establishing maximum error rates for 
counting ballots. 

Organizations. HAVA established the Election Assistance Commission 
(EAC) and gave this commission responsibility for activities and 
programs related to the administration of federal elections. This 
independent federal agency consists of four presidential appointees 
confirmed by the Senate, as well as support staff, including personnel 
inherited from the former Office of Election Administration of the 
Federal Election Commission. EAC commissioners were appointed in 
December 2003, and the commission began operations in January 2004. EAC 
is intended to serve as a national clearinghouse and resource for the 
compilation of information and procedures on election administration. 
Its responsibilities relative to voting systems include: 

* adopting and maintaining voluntary voting system guidelines; 

* managing a national program for testing, certification, 
decertification, and recertification of voting system hardware and 
software; 

* maintaining a clearinghouse of information on the experiences of 
state and local governments in implementing the guidelines and 
operating voting systems; and: 

* conducting studies and other activities to promote effective 
administration of federal elections. 

HAVA also established three organizations and levied new requirements 
on a fourth to assist EAC in establishing voting system standards and 
performing its responsibilities, including standards and 
responsibilities involving the security and reliability of voting 
systems: 

* The Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) is to assist 
EAC in developing voluntary voting system standards (which are now 
called guidelines). This committee includes selected state and local 
election officials and representatives of professional and technical 
organizations. It is chaired by the Director of the National Institute 
of Standards and Technology. 

* The Standards Board brings together one state and one local official 
from each of the 55 states and territories to review the voluntary 
voting system guidelines developed by TGDC and provide comments and 
recommendations on the guidelines to EAC. 

* The Board of Advisors is made up of 37 members--many from various 
professional and specialty organizations.[Footnote 13] Like the 
Standards Board, the Board of Advisors reviews the voluntary voting 
system guidelines developed by TGDC and provides comments and 
recommendations to EAC. 

* The Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and 
Technology (NIST) provides technical support to TGDC, including 
research and development of the voting system guidelines. NIST is also 
responsible for monitoring and reviewing the performance of independent 
testing laboratories (previously known as independent testing 
authorities) and making recommendations for accreditation and 
revocation of accreditation of the laboratories by EAC. NIST's 
responsibilities for improving the security and reliability of 
electronic voting systems include identification of security and 
reliability standards for voting system computers, networks, and data 
storage; methods to detect and prevent fraud; and protections for voter 
privacy and remote voting system access. 

Processes. HAVA provides for three major processes related to the 
security and reliability of voting systems: updating voluntary 
standards, accrediting independent testing laboratories, and certifying 
voting systems to meet national standards. HAVA specifies the 
organizations involved, activities to be undertaken, public visibility 
for the processes, and, in some cases, work products and deadlines. 
These processes are described below. 

* Updating standards. EAC and TGDC were given responsibility for 
evaluating and updating the Federal Election Commission's voluntary 
voting system standards of 2002. TGDC is to propose standards changes 
within 9 months of the appointment of all of its members, and EAC is to 
hold a public hearing and a comment period for the standards changes 
and allow at least 90 days for review and comment by the standards and 
advisory boards before voting on the standards. EAC and its boards are 
also to consider updates to the standards on an annual basis. 

* Accrediting laboratories. NIST's director is charged with evaluating 
the capabilities of independent nonfederal laboratories to carry out 
certification testing of voting systems within 6 months after EAC 
adopts the first update to the voluntary voting system 
standards.[Footnote 14] Through its National Voluntary Laboratory 
Accreditation Program, NIST is to recommend qualified laboratories for 
EAC's accreditation, provide ongoing monitoring and reviews of the 
accredited laboratories, and recommend revocation of accreditation, if 
necessary. 

* Certifying systems. EAC is to establish processes for certifying, 
decertifying, and recertifying voting systems. HAVA allows the current 
processes (as conducted under the National Association of State 
Election Directors) to continue until the laboratory accreditation 
processes to be developed by NIST are established and laboratories are 
accredited by EAC to conduct certification testing. States may also use 
the nationally accredited testing laboratories for testing associated 
with certification, decertification, and recertification of voting 
systems to meet state certification requirements. 

The majority of states currently rely on federal standards, but do not 
require national certification testing to ensure that voting systems 
meet functional, performance, and quality goals. On the basis of an 
April 2005 review of state statutes and administrative rules, EAC 
identified at least 30 states that require their voting systems to meet 
federal standards issued by the Federal Election Commission, EAC, or 
both (see fig. 4). As for certification, the majority of states require 
state certification of voting systems, but do not require national 
testing. Only 13 states currently require their systems to be tested 
against the federal standards by independent testing authorities and 
certified by the National Association of State Election Directors (see 
fig. 4). In commenting on a draft of this report, EAC noted that some 
state and local jurisdictions can choose to exceed state statute and 
administrative rules--and may be using federal standards and national 
certification testing. 

Figure 4: States Requiring the Use of Federal Voting System Standards 
and States Requiring National Certification Testing: 

[See PDF for image] 

Note: State requirements are based on EAC assessment of state statute 
and administrative rule. 

[End of figure] 

Resources. HAVA authorized federal payments to help states improve 
their voting systems in two ways: 

* By replacing punch card and lever voting systems in time for the 
November 2004 federal election unless a waiver authorizing a delay is 
granted by the Administrator of the General Services Administration. In 
the event of a waiver, states are required to replace the systems in 
time for the first federal election held after January 1, 
2006.[Footnote 15] EAC reports that approximately $300 million was 
distributed to 30 states under this HAVA provision--all in fiscal year 
2003. 

* By incorporating new voting system functions required by HAVA (for 
instance, ballot verification by voters, producing printed records for 
election auditing, and meeting vote counting error rates);[Footnote 16] 
upgrading systems in general; improving the administration of 
elections; or educating voters and training election workers (among 
other things).[Footnote 17] EAC reported that as of August 31, 2005, 
approximately $2.5 billion had been disbursed to the 50 states, 4 U.S. 
territories, and the District of Columbia, for these and other election 
improvements. 

Time frames. HAVA specifies time frames for several key activities. 
Specifically, it requires that: 

* EAC commissioners be appointed no later than 120 days after the law 
was enacted, 

* a program to distribute payments to states to replace antiquated 
voting systems be in place no later than 45 days after the law was 
enacted, 

* the first set of recommendations for revising the voluntary voting 
system standards be submitted to EAC no later than 9 months after the 
appointment of TGDC members, 

* EAC approve voluntary guidance for certain voting system standards by 
January 2004, 

* NIST conduct evaluations of independent testing laboratories for 
accreditation within 6 months of the adoption of updated voting 
standards, 

* states receiving federal payments replace their lever or punch card 
voting machines in time for the November 2004 federal election, or the 
first federal election after January 2006, with a waiver, and: 

* states meet requirements for federally mandated improvements to 
voting systems, such as voter verification of ballots, records for 
manual audits, and maximum error rates for ballot counts (HAVA Section 
301) by January 1, 2006. 

EAC commissioners were appointed in December 2003--over a year after 
the law was enacted--and the commission began operations in January 
2004. It received $1.2 million in funding in fiscal year 2004 
increasing to $14 million in fiscal year 2005. Thus, the commission got 
a late start on its initiatives. As discussed later in this report, key 
activities are currently under way. 

Security and Reliability Are Important Elements Throughout the Voting 
System Life Cycle: 

Electronic voting systems are typically developed by vendors and then 
purchased commercially off the shelf and operated by state and local 
election administrators. Viewed at a high level, these activities make 
up three phases of a system life cycle: product development, 
acquisition, and operations (see fig. 5). Key processes that span these 
life cycle phases include managing the people, processes, and 
technologies within each phase, and testing the systems and components 
during and at the end of each phase. Additionally, voting system 
standards are important through all of the phases because they provide 
criteria for developing, testing, and acquiring voting systems, and 
they specify the necessary documentation for operating the systems. As 
with other information systems, it is important to build principles of 
security and reliability into each phase of the voting system life 
cycle. 

Figure 5: A Voting System Life Cycle Model: 

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

The product development phase includes activities such as establishing 
requirements for the system, designing a system architecture, and 
developing software and integrating components. Activities in this 
phase are performed by the system vendor. Design and development 
activities related to security and reliability of electronic voting 
systems include such things as requirements development and hardware 
and software design. 

The acquisition phase covers activities for procuring voting systems 
from vendors such as publishing a request for proposal, evaluating 
proposals, choosing a voting technology, choosing a vendor, and writing 
and administering contracts. For voting systems, activities in this 
phase are primarily the responsibility of state and local governments, 
but entail some responsibilities that are shared with the system vendor 
(such as establishing contractual agreements). Acquisition activities 
affecting the security and reliability of electronic voting systems 
include such things as specifying provisions for security controls in 
contracts and identifying evaluation criteria for prospective systems. 

The operations phase consists of activities for operating the voting 
systems, including the setup of systems before voting, vote capture and 
counting during elections, recounts and system audits after elections, 
and storage of systems between elections. Responsibility for activities 
in this phase typically resides with local jurisdictions. Security and 
reliability aspects of this phase include physical security of the 
polling place and voting equipment, chain of custody for voting system 
components and supplies, system audit logs and backups, and the 
collection, analysis, reporting, and resolution of election problems. 

Standards for voting systems were developed at the national level by 
the Federal Election Commission in 1990 and 2002 and are now being 
updated by EAC, TGDC, and NIST. Voting system standards affect all life 
cycle phases. In the product development phase, they serve as guidance 
for developers to build systems. In the acquisition phase, they provide 
a framework that state and local governments can use to evaluate 
systems. In the operations phase, they specify the necessary 
documentation for operating the systems. Current and planned national 
standards include explicit requirements for ensuring the security and 
reliability of voting systems. 

Testing processes are conducted throughout the life cycle of a voting 
system. Voting system vendors conduct product testing during 
development of the system and its components. National testing of 
products submitted by system vendors is conducted by nationally 
accredited independent testing authorities. States may conduct 
evaluation testing before acquiring a system to determine how well 
products meet their specifications, or may conduct certification 
testing to ensure that a system performs its functions as specified by 
state laws and requirements. Once a voting system is delivered by the 
system vendor, states and local jurisdictions may conduct acceptance 
testing to ensure that the system satisfies functional requirements. 
Finally, local jurisdictions typically conduct logic and accuracy tests 
related to each election, and sometimes subject portions of the system 
to parallel testing during each election to ensure that the system 
components perform accurately. All of these tests should address system 
security and reliability. 

Management processes ensure that each life cycle phase produces 
desirable outcomes. Typical management activities that span the system 
life cycle include planning, configuration management, system 
performance review and evaluation, problem tracking and correction, 
human capital management, and user training. These activities are 
conducted by the responsible parties in each life cycle phase. 
Management processes related to security and reliability include 
program planning, disaster recovery and contingency planning, 
definition of security roles and responsibilities, configuration 
management of voting system software and hardware, and poll worker 
security training. 

In 2004, we reported that the performance of electronic voting systems, 
like any type of automated information system, can be judged on several 
bases, including how well its design provides for security, accuracy, 
ease of use, efficiency, and cost.[Footnote 18] We also reported that 
voting system performance is a function of how it was designed and 
developed, whether the system performs as designed, and how the system 
is implemented. In implementing a system, it is critical to have people 
with the requisite knowledge and skills to operate it according to well-
defined and understood processes. 

Significant Concerns Have Been Raised about the Security and 
Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems: 

Electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the efficiency and 
accuracy of the election process by automating a manual process, 
providing flexibility for accommodating voters with special needs, and 
implementing controls to avoid errors by voters and election workers. 
However, in a series of recent reports, election officials, computer 
security experts, citizen advocacy groups, and others have raised 
significant concerns about the security and reliability of electronic 
voting systems, citing instances of weak security controls, system 
design flaws, inadequate system version control, inadequate security 
testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and 
vague or incomplete standards, among other issues. Most of the issues 
can be viewed in the context of the voting system life cycle, including 
(1) the development of voting systems, including the design of these 
systems and the environments in which they were developed; (2) the 
nature and effectiveness of the testing program for electronic voting 
systems; (3) the operation and management of electronic voting systems 
at the state and local levels; and (4) the voluntary voting systems 
standards, which govern different activities at different phases. The 
aspects of the life cycle are interdependent--that is, a problem 
experienced in one area of the life cycle will likely affect the other 
areas. For example, a weakness in system standards could result in a 
poorly designed system during the development phase, which then 
malfunctions in the operational phase. Also, each of the life cycle 
phases depends on the management of people, processes, and technology 
to ensure that they are executed in a manner that adequately ensures 
reliable and secure results. Because of these multiple 
interdependencies, it is sometimes difficult to determine the root 
cause of some problems. Table 1 provides a summary of the different 
types of concerns identified. 

In viewing these concerns, it is important to note that many involved 
vulnerabilities or problems with specific voting system makes and 
models or circumstances in a specific jurisdiction's election, and that 
there is a lack of consensus among elections officials, computer 
security experts, and others on the pervasiveness of the concerns. 
Nevertheless, there is evidence that some of these concerns have been 
realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in 
the loss and miscount of votes. In light of the recently demonstrated 
voting system problems; the differing views on how widespread these 
problems are; and the complexity of assuring the accuracy, integrity, 
confidentiality, and availability of voting systems throughout their 
life cycles, the security and reliability concerns raised in recent 
reports merit the focused attention of federal, state, and local 
authorities responsible for election administration. 

Table 1: Common Types of Security and Reliability Concerns Viewed in 
Terms of the Voting System Life Cycle: 

Life cycle component: Product development; 
Common concerns: 
* Weak system security controls; 
* Design flaws in voter-verified paper audit trail systems; 
* Weak security management practices. 

Life cycle component: Acquisition; 
Common concerns: No significant concerns reported. 

Life cycle component: Operations; 
Common concerns: 
* Incorrect system configuration; 
* Poor implementation of security procedures; 
* System failures during elections. 

Life cycle component: Standards; 
Common concerns: 
* Vague and incomplete security provisions; 
* Inadequate provisions for commercial off-the-shelf systems and 
telecommunications and networking services; 
* Inadequate requirements for vendor documentation. 

Life cycle component: Testing; 
Common concerns: 
* Inadequate security testing; 
* Lack of transparency in the testing process. 

Life cycle component: Management; 
Common concerns: 
* Poor version control of system software; 
* Inadequate security management. 

Source: GAO analysis and summary. 

[End of table] 

Common concerns as well as examples of the problems identified during 
recent elections are discussed in more detail below. 

Product Development: 

Multiple recent reports, including several state-commissioned technical 
reviews and security assessments, voiced concerns about the development 
of secure and reliable electronic voting systems by system vendors. 
Three major areas of concern are weak security controls, audit trail 
design flaws, and weak security management practices. 

Weak system security controls. Some electronic voting systems provided 
weak system security controls over key components (including electronic 
storage for votes and ballots, remote system access equipment, and 
system event and audit logs), access to the systems, and the physical 
system hardware. 

* Regarding key software components, several evaluations demonstrated 
that election management systems did not encrypt the data files 
containing cast votes (to protect them from being viewed or 
modified).[Footnote 19] Evaluations also showed that, in some cases, 
other computer programs could access these cast vote files and alter 
them without the system recording this action in its audit 
logs.[Footnote 20] Two reports documented how it might be possible to 
alter the ballot definition files on one model of DRE so that the votes 
shown on the touch screen for one candidate would actually be recorded 
and counted for a different candidate.[Footnote 21] In addition, one of 
these reports found that it was possible to gain full control of a 
regional vote tabulation computer--including the ability to modify the 
voting software--via a modem connection.[Footnote 22] More recently, 
computer security experts working with a local elections supervisor in 
Florida demonstrated that someone with physical access to an optical 
scan voting system could falsify election results without leaving any 
record of this action in the system's audit logs by using altered 
memory cards.[Footnote 23] If exploited, these weaknesses could damage 
the integrity of ballots, votes, and voting system software by allowing 
unauthorized modifications. 

* Regarding access controls, many security examinations reported flaws 
in how controls were implemented in some DRE systems.[Footnote 24] For 
example, one model failed to password-protect the supervisor functions 
controlling key system capabilities; another relied on an easily 
guessed password to access these functions.[Footnote 25] In another 
case, the same personal identification number was programmed into all 
supervisor cards nationwide--meaning that the number was likely to be 
widely known.[Footnote 26] Reviewers also found that values used to 
encrypt election data (called encryption keys) were defined in the 
source code.[Footnote 27] Several reviews reported that smart cards 
(used to activate the touch screen on DRE systems) and memory cards 
(used to program the terminals of optical scan systems) were not 
secured by some voting systems. Reviewers exploited this weakness by 
altering such cards and using them to improperly access administrator 
functions, vote multiple times, change vote totals, and produce false 
election reports in a test environment.[Footnote 28] Some election 
officials and security experts felt that physical and procedural 
controls would detect anyone attempting to vote multiple times during 
an actual election.[Footnote 29] Nevertheless, in the event of lax 
supervision, the privileges available through these access control 
flaws could allow unauthorized personnel to disrupt operations or 
modify data and programs that are crucial to the accuracy and integrity 
of the voting process. 

* Regarding physical hardware controls, several recent reports found 
that many of the DRE models under examination contained weaknesses in 
controls designed to protect the system. For instance, one report noted 
that all the locks on a particular DRE model were easily picked, and 
were all controlled by the same keys--keys that the reports' authors 
were able to copy at a local store.[Footnote 30] However, the affected 
election officials felt that this risk would be mitigated by typical 
polling-place supervisors, who would be able to detect anyone picking 
the lock on a DRE terminal.[Footnote 31] In another report, reviewers 
were concerned that a particular model of DRE was linked together with 
others to form a rudimentary network.[Footnote 32] If one of these 
machines were accidentally or intentionally unplugged from the others, 
voting functions on the other machines in the network would be 
disrupted. In addition, reviewers found that the switches used to turn 
a DRE system on or off, as well as those used to close the polls on a 
particular DRE terminal, were not protected.[Footnote 33] 

Design flaws in the voter-verified paper audit trail systems. Voter- 
verified paper audit trail systems involve adding a paper printout to a 
DRE system that a voter can review and verify. Some citizen advocacy 
groups, security experts, and elections officials advocate these 
systems as a protection against potential DRE flaws.[Footnote 34] 
However, other election officials and researchers have raised concerns 
about potential reliability and security flaws in the design of such 
systems.[Footnote 35] Critics of the systems argue that adding printers 
increases the chance of mechanical failure and disruption to the 
polling place.[Footnote 36] Critics also point out that these systems 
introduce security risks involving the paper audit trail itself. 
Election officials would need to safeguard the paper ballots. If voting 
system mechanisms for protecting the paper audit trail were inadequate, 
an insider could associate voters with their individual paper ballots 
and votes, particularly if the system stored voter-verified ballots 
sequentially on a continuous roll of paper.[Footnote 37] If not 
protected, such information could breach voter confidentiality. 

Weak security management practices. Selected state elections officials, 
computer security experts, and election experts view the reported 
instances of weak controls as an indication that the voting system 
vendors lack strong security management and development 
practices.[Footnote 38] Security experts and local election officials 
cite the position of trust that vendors occupy in the overall election 
process, and say that to ensure the security and reliability of 
electronic voting systems--as well as improve voters' confidence in the 
electoral process--vendors' practices need to be above 
reproach.[Footnote 39] Specific concerns have been expressed about (1) 
the personnel security policies used by vendors, including whether 
vendors conduct background checks on programmers and systems 
developers; (2) whether vendors have established strict internal 
security protocols and have adhered to them during software 
development; and (3) whether vendors have established clear chain of 
custody procedures for handling and transporting their software 
securely.[Footnote 40] A committee of election system vendors generally 
disagrees with these concerns and asserts that their security 
management practices are sound. 

Election Operations: 

Several reports raised concerns about the operational practices of 
local jurisdictions and the performance of their electronic voting 
systems during elections. These include incorrect system 
configurations, poor implementation of security procedures, and 
operational failures during an election. 

Incorrect system configuration. Some state and local election reviews 
have documented cases in which local governments did not configure 
their voting systems properly for an election. For instance, a county 
in California presented some voters with an incorrect electronic ballot 
in the March 2004 primary.[Footnote 41] As a result, these voters were 
unable to vote on certain races. In another case, a county in 
Pennsylvania made a ballot programming error on its DRE 
system.[Footnote 42] This error contributed to many votes not being 
captured correctly by the voting system, evidenced by that county's 
undervote percentage, which reached 80 percent in some precincts. 

Poor implementation of security procedures. Several reports indicated 
that state and local officials did not always follow security 
procedures. Reports from Maryland found that a regional vote tabulation 
computer was connected to the Internet, and that local officials had 
not updated it with several security patches, thus exposing the system 
to general security threats.[Footnote 43] In another example, election 
monitors in Florida described how certain precincts did not ensure that 
the number of votes matched the number of signatures on the precinct 
sign-in sheets, thus raising questions as to whether the voting systems 
captured the correct number of votes.[Footnote 44] A report from 
California cited a number of counties that failed to follow mandatory 
security measures set forth by the Secretary of State's office that 
were designed to compensate for potential security weaknesses in their 
electronic voting systems.[Footnote 45] 

System failures during elections. Several state and local jurisdictions 
have documented instances when their electronic voting systems 
exhibited operational problems during elections. For example, 
California officials documented how a failure in a key component of 
their system led to polling place disruptions and an unknown number of 
disenfranchised voters.[Footnote 46] In another instance, DRE voting 
machines in one county in North Carolina continued to accept votes 
after their memories were full, effectively causing over 4,000 votes to 
be lost.[Footnote 47] The same system was used in Pennsylvania, where 
the state's designated voting system examiner noted several other 
problems, including the system's failure to accurately capture write-in 
or straight ticket votes, screen freezes, and difficulties sensing 
voters' touches.[Footnote 48] A Florida county experienced several 
problems with its DRE system, including instances where each touch 
screen took up to 1 hour to activate and had to be activated separately 
and sequentially, causing delays at the polling place.[Footnote 49] In 
addition, election monitors discovered that the system contained a flaw 
that allowed one DRE system's ballots to be added to the canvass totals 
multiple times without being detected.[Footnote 50] In another 
instance, a malfunction in a DRE system in Ohio caused the system to 
record approximately 3,900 votes too many for one presidential 
candidate in the 2004 general election.[Footnote 51] While each of 
these problems was noted in an operational environment, the root cause 
was not known in all cases. 

Standards: 

In 1990, the Federal Election Commission issued a set of voluntary 
voting systems standards, which were later revised in 2002. These 
standards identify minimum functional and performance requirements for 
electronic voting systems such as optical scan and DRE voting 
equipment. The functional and performance requirements address what 
voting equipment should do and delineate minimum performance 
thresholds, documentation provisions, and security and quality 
assurance requirements. These standards also specify testing to ensure 
that the equipment meets these requirements. The standards are 
voluntary--meaning that states are free to adopt them in whole or in 
part, or reject them entirely. 

Computer security experts and others have criticized the 2002 voting 
system standards for not containing requirements sufficient to ensure 
secure and reliable voting systems. Common concerns with the standards 
involve vague and incomplete security provisions, inadequate provisions 
for some commercial products and networks, and inadequate documentation 
requirements. 

Vague and incomplete security provisions. Security experts and others 
have criticized the security provisions in the voting system standards 
for being vague and lacking specific requirements.[Footnote 52] 
Although the standards require the presence of many kinds of security 
controls, the concern is that they are not specific enough to ensure 
the effective and correct implementation of the controls. One of the 
independent testing authorities agreed and noted that the broad terms 
of the standards do not provide for consistent testing because they 
leave too much room for interpretation.[Footnote 53] 

Computer security and testing experts have also noted that the current 
voting system standards are not comprehensive enough and that they omit 
a number of common computer security controls. For example, an 
independent testing authority expressed a concern that the standards do 
not prohibit many software coding flaws, which could make the voting 
system software susceptible to external attack and malicious 
code.[Footnote 54] In addition, NIST performed a review of the voting 
system standards and found numerous gaps between its own security 
guidance for federal information systems and those prescribed by the 
standards. Others have argued that the standards are simply out of 
date, and contain no guidance on technologies such as wireless 
networking and voter-verified paper audit trails.[Footnote 
55]Inadequate provisions for commercial off- the-shelf (COTS) systems 
and telecommunications and networking services. Computer security 
experts have raised concerns about a provision in the voting system 
standards that exempts unaltered COTS software from testing, and about 
voting system standards that are not sufficient to address the 
weaknesses inherent in telecommunications and networking services. 
Specifically, vendors often use COTS software in their electronic 
voting systems, including operating systems like Microsoft Windows. 
Security experts note that COTS software could contain defects, 
vulnerabilities, and other weaknesses that could be carried over into 
electronic voting systems, thereby compromising their 
security.[Footnote 56] Regarding telecommunication and networking 
services, selected computer security experts believe that relying on 
any use of telecommunications or networking services, including 
wireless communications, exposes electronic voting systems to risks 
that make it difficult to guarantee their security and reliability-- 
even with safeguards such as encryption and digital signatures in 
place.[Footnote 57] 

Inadequate requirements for documentation. Computer security experts 
and some elections officials have expressed concerns that the 
documentation requirements in the voting system standards are not 
explicit enough. For instance, computer security experts warn that the 
documentation requirements for source code are not sufficient for code 
that is obscure or confusing, nor do they require developers to 
sufficiently map out how software modules interact with one 
another.[Footnote 58] This could make it difficult for testers and 
auditors to understand what they are reviewing, lessening their ability 
to detect unstable or hidden (and potentially malicious) functionality. 
In addition, election officials and a security expert raised concerns 
that the standards do not require sufficient documentation for local 
officials with respect to proper operation and maintenance 
procedures.[Footnote 59] For instance, election officials in one state 
noted that when voting machines malfunctioned and started generating 
error messages during an election, state technicians were unable to 
diagnose and resolve the problems because the vendor's documentation 
provided no information about what the error messages meant, or how to 
fix the problems.[Footnote 60] 

Voting System Testing: 

Security experts and some election officials have expressed concerns 
that tests currently performed by independent testing authorities and 
state and local election officials do not adequately assess electronic 
voting systems' security and reliability. These concerns are amplified 
by what some perceive as a lack of transparency in the testing process. 

Inadequate security testing. Many computer security experts expressed 
concerns with weak or insufficient system functional testing, source 
code reviews, and penetration testing.[Footnote 61] Illustrating their 
concerns, most of the systems with weak security controls identified 
earlier in this report (see product development issues) had previously 
been certified by the National Association of State Election Directors 
after testing by an independent testing authority. Security experts and 
others point to this as an indication that both the standards and the 
testing program are not rigorous enough with respect to security. 

* Regarding the functional testing conducted by independent testing 
authorities and state and local officials, election and security 
experts expressed concern that this testing may not reveal certain 
security flaws in electronic voting systems.[Footnote 62] They argue 
that functional tests only measure a system's performance when it is 
used as expected, under normal operating conditions.[Footnote 63] As a 
result, this testing cannot determine what might happen if a voter acts 
in unexpected ways, or how the system would react in the face of an 
active attack. Specifically, security experts argue that functional 
testing is unlikely to ever trigger certain types of hidden 
code.[Footnote 64] As a result, malicious code could be present in a 
system and evade testing as long as the triggering commands were not 
entered. 

* Security and testing experts also expressed concern that the source 
code reviews called for in the voting system standards and conducted by 
independent testing authorities are too general and do not take into 
account the unique nature of voting systems. For instance, several 
experts noted that malicious code could be hidden in source code and be 
obscure enough to avoid detection by the general reviews, which 
currently focus on coding conventions, comments, and line 
length.[Footnote 65] Moreover, there is concern that these code reviews 
may not adequately inspect how voting system software interacts with 
key election data.[Footnote 66] Specifically, security experts say that 
a testing authority's source code review should include checks for 
unique elements of the election contest, including (1) software modules 
with inappropriate access to vote totals, ballot definition files, or 
individual ballots; (2) functionality with time or date dependent 
behavior; and (3) software modules that retain information from 
previous screen touches or previous voters--all potentially indicative 
of improper and malicious voting system behavior.[Footnote 67] 

* As for penetration testing, experts expressed concerns that voting 
system testing does not include such explicit security tests.[Footnote 
68] An official from an independent testing authority generally agreed 
and said that the security-related parts of their testing use a 
checklist approach, based on what is called for in the voluntary voting 
system standards. This official recommended more rigorous security 
testing. Another testing authority official said that their testing 
does not guarantee that voting systems are secure and reliable. This 
official has called for local jurisdictions to conduct additional 
security testing and risk analyses of their own.[Footnote 69] 

Lack of transparency in the testing process. Security experts and some 
elections officials have raised concerns about a lack of transparency 
in the testing process. They note that the test plans used by the 
independent testing authorities, along with the test results, are 
treated as protected trade secrets and thus cannot be released to the 
public.[Footnote 70] (Designated election officials may, in fact, 
obtain copies of test results for their systems, but only with the 
permission of the vendor.) As a result, critics argue, the rigor of the 
testing process is largely unknown. Critics say that this lack of 
transparency hinders oversight and auditing of the testing 
process.[Footnote 71] This in turn makes it harder to determine the 
actual capabilities, potential vulnerabilities, and performance 
problems of a given system. Despite assertions by election officials 
and vendors that disclosing too much information about an electronic 
voting system could pose a security risk,[Footnote 72] one security 
expert noted that a system should be secure enough to resist even a 
knowledgeable attacker.[Footnote 73] 

Security Management: 

Numerous studies raised concerns about the security management 
practices of state and local governments in ensuring the security of 
electronic voting systems, citing poor version control of system 
software and inadequate security management programs. 

Poor version control of system software. Security experts and selected 
election officials are concerned about the configuration management 
practices of state and local jurisdictions. Specifically, the voting 
system software installed at the local level may not be the same as 
what was qualified and certified at the national or state 
levels.[Footnote 74] These groups raised the possibility that either 
intentionally or by accident, voting system software could be altered 
or substituted, or that vendors or local officials might (knowingly or 
not) install untested or uncertified versions of voting 
systems.[Footnote 75] As a result, potentially unreliable or malicious 
software might be used in elections. For example, in separate instances 
in California and Indiana, state officials found that two different 
vendors had violated regulations and state law by installing 
uncertified software on voting systems.[Footnote 76] 

Inadequate security management programs. Several of the technical 
reviews mentioned previously also found that states did not have 
effective information security management plans in place to oversee 
their electronic voting systems.[Footnote 77] The reports noted that 
key managerial functions were not in place, including (1) providing 
appropriate security training, (2) ensuring that employees and 
contractors had proper certifications, (3) ensuring that security roles 
were well defined and staffed, and (4) ensuring that pertinent 
officials correctly configure their voting system audit logs and 
require them to be reviewed. 

In addition, several reports indicated that some state and local 
jurisdictions did not always have procedures in place to address 
problems with their electronic voting systems.[Footnote 78] For 
instance, one county in Pennsylvania reported that neither its election 
staff nor its technical division knew how to deal with several problems 
that occurred on election day.[Footnote 79] The report also cited (1) a 
lack of preparation and contingency planning for significant problems, 
(2) inadequate communication means between precincts and the county 
election office for problem reporting, and (3) the absence of paper 
ballots held in reserve as a backup. In addition, this and other 
reports indicated that poll workers might not receive sufficient 
training, or possess adequate technical skills or knowledge of their 
particular systems to manage, administer, and troubleshoot 
them.[Footnote 80] 

While the concerns listed above are numerous, it is important to note 
that many involved problems with specific voting system makes and 
models or with circumstances in a specific jurisdiction's election. 
Further, there is a lack of consensus among election officials, 
computer security experts, and others on the pervasiveness of the 
concerns. On one hand, both vendors and election officials express 
confidence in the security of their current products. Election 
officials note that their administrative procedures can compensate for 
inherent system weaknesses, and they point out that there has never 
been a proven case of fraud involving tampering with electronic voting 
systems. Alternatively, citizen groups and computer security experts 
note that administrative procedures cannot compensate for all of the 
weaknesses and that if electronic voting system security weaknesses are 
exploited, particularly by those with insider access to the systems, 
changes to election results could go undetected.[Footnote 81] 

Nevertheless, there is evidence that some of these concerns--including 
weak controls and inadequate testing--have caused problems with recent 
elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes. In light of the 
recently demonstrated voting system problems, the differing views on 
how widespread these problems are, and the complexity of assuring the 
accuracy, integrity, confidentiality, and availability of voting 
systems throughout their life cycles, the security and reliability 
concerns raised in recent reports merit attention. 

Recommended Practices Address Electronic Voting Systems' Security and 
Reliability: 

Several federal, academic, and nongovernmental organizations have 
issued guidance to help state and local election officials improve the 
election and voting processes. This guidance includes recommended 
practices for enhancing the security and reliability of voting systems. 
For example, in mid-2004, EAC issued a compendium of practices 
recommended by elections experts, including state and local 
jurisdictions.[Footnote 82] This compendium, among many suggested 
practices, includes activities to help ensure a secure and reliable 
voting process throughout a voting systems' life cycle. As another 
example, in July 2004, the California Institute of Technology and the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report recommending 
immediate steps to avoid lost votes in the 2004 election, including 
suggestions for testing equipment, retaining audit logs, and physically 
securing voting systems.[Footnote 83] 

In addition to this election-specific guidance, the federal government 
and other entities have published extensive guidance intended to help 
organizations address, evaluate, and manage the security and 
reliability of their information technology systems. This guidance 
includes practices in the product development phase of the system life 
cycle that may assist voting system vendors in adopting appropriate 
standards and practices for designing and developing secure and 
reliable voting systems. In addition, this guidance includes practices 
in the areas of acquisition, testing, operation, and management that 
may help state governments and local election officials in acquiring 
technologies and services; assessing security risks; selecting, 
applying, and monitoring security controls; auditing systems; and 
adopting security policies. 

The following is a high-level summary of common practices identified in 
both general and election-specific reports that address the security 
and reliability of electronic voting systems in the context of the 
system life cycle phases and cross-cutting activities. The recommended 
practices in both election-specific and IT-focused guidance documents 
provide valuable guidance throughout a voting system's life cycle that, 
if implemented effectively, should help improve the security and 
reliability of voting systems. Appendix II provides a more detailed 
summary of the election-specific publications' guidance on voting 
system security and reliability practices, and appendix III provides 
summaries of general guidance on information systems security. 

Product Development: 

* Voting system developers should define security requirements and 
specifications early in the design and development process. 

* The security requirements for voting systems should consider the 
unique security needs of elections and the voting environment, as well 
as applicable laws, national standards, and other external influences 
and constraints that govern systems. 

* Voting systems should contain audit logs that record all activity 
involving access to and modifications of the system, particularly of 
sensitive or critical files or data, including the time of the event, 
the type of event and its result, and the user identification 
associated with the event. 

* Voting systems should employ adequate logical access controls over 
software and data files. Systems should require that passwords be 
changed periodically, and that they not use names or words from the 
dictionary. Further, the use of vendor-supplied or generic passwords 
should be prohibited. 

* Vendors should review lessons learned from recent elections and 
implement relevant mitigation steps to address known security 
weaknesses (see app. II, table 16). 

Acquisition: 

* Election officials should focus on the security issues related to 
electronic voting equipment before purchasing or implementing voting 
systems. 

* Requests for proposals should include security requirements and 
evaluation and test procedures. 

* Election officials should review lessons learned from recent 
elections and implement relevant mitigation steps to address known 
security weaknesses (see app. II, table 16). 

Operations: 

* State and local authorities should ensure that sensitive activities 
in the election process, such as vote tabulation and the transporting 
of ballots or election results, are performed by more than one person 
or observed by representatives of both major parties. 

* Procedures should be developed and followed to identify and document 
the chain of custody for every instance when sensitive election items 
(such as memory cards, ballots, and voting machines) change hands. 

* Voting machines, ballots, memory cartridges, election supplies, and 
offices should be physically secured against unauthorized access 
before, during, and after an election. 

* A postelection audit of voting systems should be conducted to 
reconcile vote totals and ballot counts, even if there is no recount 
scheduled. 

* An audit of the election system and process should be conducted after 
election day to verify that the election was conducted correctly and to 
uncover any evidence of security breaches or other problems that may 
not have surfaced on election day. 

Standards: 

* States should adopt the most current version of the national 
voluntary voting standards or guidelines. 

Testing: 

* During the product development phase, electronic voting system 
developers should verify and validate the security controls on the 
system before deployment in order to ensure that the controls are 
working properly and effectively and that they meet the operational 
security needs of the purchasing jurisdiction. 

* During the acquisition phase, states and local governments should 
require that voting systems be certified against federal standards. 

* During the operations phase, localities should conduct logic and 
accuracy testing on voting machines before the election to ensure that 
they accurately record votes. 

Management: 

* Voting system developers should establish a sound security policy 
that identifies the security goals of their system; the procedures, 
standards, and controls needed to support the system security goals; 
the critical assets; and the security-related roles and 
responsibilities. 

* Voting system developers should conduct appropriate background 
screening on all employees before granting them access to sensitive 
information or placing them into sensitive positions. 

* Election officials should plan for poll worker training early in the 
process and ensure that all training classes and materials include 
information on the security of voting systems and on election security 
procedures. 

* Election officials, not vendors, should control the administration 
and use of the voting equipment. To that end, the election 
administration team should include persons with expertise in both 
computer security and voting system oversight. 

* Election officials should conduct a risk analysis of voting systems 
and address any identified vulnerabilities and points of failure in the 
election process. 

* Election officials should ensure that vendors provide tested and 
certified versions of voting system software by requiring that software 
be submitted to NIST's National Software Reference Library, and by 
verifying that the systems, including hardware, software, and software 
patches, have met all required standards through required 
testing.[Footnote 84] 

* Procedures and plans should be established for handling election day 
equipment failure, including backup and contingency plans. If voting 
machines malfunction during voting, they should not be repaired or 
removed from the polling place on election day. 

National Initiatives Are Under Way to Improve Voting System Security 
and Reliability, but Key Activities Need to Be Completed: 

Since the implementation of HAVA in 2002, the federal government has 
begun a range of actions that are expected to improve the security and 
reliability of electronic voting systems. EAC, with the support of TGDC 
and NIST, is in the process of updating voluntary voting system 
standards, is establishing federal processes to accredit independent 
test laboratories and certify voting systems to national standards, and 
is supporting state and local election management by providing a 
library for certified software and acting as a clearinghouse for 
information on voting system problems and recommended election 
administration and management practices. However, a majority of these 
efforts either lack specific plans for implementation in time to affect 
the 2006 general election or are not expected to be completed until 
after the 2006 election. As a result, it is unclear when these 
initiatives will be available to assist state and local election 
officials. In addition to the federal government's activities, 
nongovernmental initiatives are under way to (1) define international 
voting system standards; (2) develop designs for open voting system 
products; (3) provide a framework of acquisition questions to use in 
acquiring voting systems; and (4) support management of voting systems 
by collecting and analyzing problem reports. 

Federal Initiatives to Improve Voting Systems Security and Reliability 
Are Under Way: 

EAC, in collaboration with NIST and TGDC, has initiated efforts on 
several of its key responsibilities relating to the security and 
reliability of electronic voting systems, including improving voting 
system standards, developing a process to facilitate testing systems 
against the standards, and supporting state and local governments' 
election management. Table 2 summarizes federal initiatives--both those 
required by HAVA and those initiated by EAC to support HAVA 
requirements. 

Table 2: Federal Initiatives Related to Improving the Security and 
Reliability of Voting Systems: 

Standards: 

Initiative: Draft initial set of voluntary voting system guidelines 
(HAVA); 
Responsibility: TGDC; 
Status: Completed; 
Actual or planned completion date: May 2005 (actual). 

Initiative: Adopt voluntary guidance for certain voting system 
standards (HAVA); 
Responsibility: EAC; 
Status: In process; 
Actual or planned completion date: Fall 2005. 

Initiative: Complete security and reliability updates to voting system 
guidelines; 
Responsibility: TGDC recommends; EAC approves; 
Status: In process; 
Actual or planned completion date: Not determined. 

Testing: 

Initiative: Conduct evaluation of independent testing laboratories for 
accreditation (HAVA); 
Responsibility: NIST; 
Status: Not yet initiated; 
Actual or planned completion date: By early 2007. 

Initiative: Accredit first cadre of independent voting system testing 
laboratories (HAVA); 
Responsibility: NIST recommends; EAC approves; 
Status: Not yet initiated; 
Actual or planned completion date: By early 2007. 

Initiative: Define interim process for certification of voting systems; 
Responsibility: EAC; 
Status: In process; 
Actual or planned completion date: Fall 2005. 

Initiative: Establish national program for voting system certification 
(HAVA); 
Responsibility: EAC; 
Status: In process; 
Actual or planned completion date: Not determined. 

Management support: 

Initiative: Establish national reference library for certified voting 
system software; 
Responsibility: NIST; 
Status: Completed; 
Actual or planned completion date: July 2004 (actual). 

Initiative: Establish procedures for sharing problems associated with 
voting systems; 
Responsibility: NIST recommends; EAC approves; 
Status: In process; 
Actual or planned completion date: Not determined. 

Initiative: Provide an initial report that includes best practices for 
secure and reliable voting systems; 
Responsibility: EAC; 
Status: Completed; 
Actual or planned completion date: August 2004 (actual). 

Initiative: Provide periodic reports on election administration 
practices (HAVA); 
Responsibility: EAC; 
Status: In process; 
Actual or planned completion date: First report by December 2006; later 
reports not determined. 

Source: GAO analysis of HAVA and EAC, NIST, and TGDC data. 

Note: Initiatives followed by (HAVA) are required by the Help America 
Vote Act. 

[End of table] 

Standards. TGDC and NIST have been working on behalf of EAC to improve 
the 2002 Federal Election Commission voluntary voting system 
standards[Footnote 85] and their impact on the acquisition, testing, 
operations, and management processes of the voting system life 
cycle.[Footnote 86] TGDC approved 41 resolutions between July 2004 and 
April 2005, many of which directed NIST to research and develop 
recommendations for changing various voting system capabilities and 
assurance processes. Of the 41 resolutions, 24 relate to the security 
and reliability of voting systems. Appendix IV contains the relevant 
resolutions and their status. 

TGDC's initial priorities have been to correct errors and fill gaps in 
the 2002 standards and to supplement them with provisions that address 
HAVA requirements. In May 2005, TGDC approved a first set of 
recommended changes and delivered them to EAC. Subsequently, EAC 
published these changes as proposed voluntary voting system guidelines 
and requested public comment by September 30, 2005. EAC plans to review 
and address the comments it receives from the public and its standards 
and advisory boards during October 2005, and to issue the 2005 
Voluntary Voting System Guidelines shortly thereafter, depending on the 
nature and volume of comments. EAC is proposing that the 2005 voluntary 
voting system guidelines will become effective 24 months after they are 
adopted by the EAC, although individual states will be free to adopt 
the standards at any time during the 24 month period. According to the 
EAC, the 24 month period is intended to give vendors the time to design 
and develop systems that comply with the new guidelines; to give 
testing laboratories the opportunity to develop testing protocols, 
train laboratory staff, and be prepared to test the systems against the 
new guidelines; and to allow states time to adopt the standards, adjust 
their certification and acceptance testing processes, and acquire 
systems in plenty of time for future election cycles. 

Key security and reliability standards of the proposed 2005 guidelines 
include: 

* a method for distributing voting system software, 

* protocols for generating and distributing software reference data for 
the NIST repository of certified voting system software, 

* a method for validating the proper setup of voting systems, 

* controls for the use of wireless communications by voting systems, 
and: 

* optional specifications for a voter-verified paper audit trail. 

However, NIST reported that several of the topics listed in the 
proposed guidelines (including software distribution, validation of 
system setup, and wireless communications) will not be fully addressed 
in the 2005 update, and will need to be updated in a future version of 
the guidelines. Furthermore, key security and reliability improvements 
to the existing standards (including guidance for the security of COTS 
software; ensuring the correctness of software, testing, and 
documentation for system security; enhancements to the precision and 
testability of the standards; and the usability of error messages) have 
been deferred until the subsequent set of guidelines is developed. EAC 
officials acknowledged that these changes will not be made in the 
initial set of guidelines, and reiterated that they are focusing on 
what can be done in time to meet the HAVA-mandated delivery date for 
the initial set of guidelines. 

Testing. EAC and NIST have initiatives under way to improve voting 
system testing, including efforts to evaluate and accredit independent 
testing laboratories (which test voting systems against the national 
standards) and efforts to define both an interim process and a long-
term program for voting system certification. 

* NIST is in the process of establishing plans and procedures to 
conduct an evaluation of independent, nonfederal laboratories through 
its National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program. NIST solicited 
feedback from interested laboratories concerning its accreditation 
program, drafted a handbook that documents the accreditation process, 
and accepted applications from its first cadre of candidate 
laboratories through August 2005. The evaluation of candidate 
laboratories is planned to begin in fall 2005. Once this evaluation is 
completed, NIST plans to submit for EAC accreditation a proposed list 
of laboratories to carry out the testing of voting systems. In light of 
the time required to publicize the accreditation process and 
requirements and to evaluate the first set of candidates, NIST 
officials estimated that they would recommend laboratories for 
accreditation in late 2006 or early 2007. Laboratories that are 
currently accredited by the National Association of State Election 
Directors can continue to operate as independent testing authorities 
until June 2008, but are expected to complete NIST's new accreditation 
program by that time. In addition, EAC officials stated that they are 
in the process of developing plans and procedures with NIST and the 
independent testing authorities to upgrade existing accreditations to 
address the 2005 voting system standards, when these standards are 
approved. 

* EAC is working to establish a program to certify, decertify, and 
recertify voting systems. With the assistance of a consulting firm, EAC 
is in the process of defining certification policies and procedures, 
both for systems undergoing testing with existing federal voluntary 
voting system standards and for those that will be tested against EAC's 
voluntary voting system guidelines. EAC officials expect to define the 
scope and framework for the certification process and to begin to 
accept vendor registrations during fall 2005. It also expects to begin 
accepting applications for certification of voting systems by January 
2006. EAC has not yet determined when it will have a national program 
for voting system certification in place. 

Management support. To address its responsibilities related to 
providing election management support to state and local jurisdictions, 
EAC and NIST have been working to establish a software library and to 
act as a clearinghouse for information on both problems and recommended 
practices involving elections and systems. 

* In anticipation of the 2004 elections, EAC and NIST established a 
software library for voting systems within NIST's National Software 
Reference Library that allows state and local governments to verify 
that their voting system software is the certified version (based on 
testing by independent testing laboratories) and to manage the 
configuration of that software for their systems. The library was 
established before the 2004 general election with software from 
approximately a half dozen major voting system vendors. NIST derived 
digital signatures for the software and published them on the library's 
public Web site for states and local jurisdictions to compare with the 
signatures of software used by their systems. 

* In January 2005, TGDC requested that NIST define a process and 
specification for sharing information among jurisdictions regarding 
nonconformities, problems, and vulnerabilities in voting systems, to 
specifically address the security and reliability of those systems. 
Such information could be used to alert state and local election 
officials to known problems with their systems and to develop 
additional recommended practices for their use. TGDC designated this 
task as a third-tier priority and has deferred working on it until 
after the publication of the 2005 voting system standards. In addition, 
EAC surveyed state and local election officials to identify problems 
they encountered during the 2004 election. However, election officials 
often interpreted the survey questions differently, so not all of the 
information resulting from this survey was complete or usable. EAC 
plans to enhance its survey activities in the future. 

* EAC is charged by HAVA with conducting periodic studies of election 
administration issues with the goal of providing the most accurate, 
secure, and expeditious system for voting and tabulating election 
results.[Footnote 87] Toward this end, EAC compiled the experiences of 
a select group of elections experts into a tool kit to help states and 
local jurisdictions prepare for the 2004 general election.[Footnote 88] 
It was published on EAC's Web site in August 2004 and publicized to 
state and local jurisdictions before the election. The tool kit 
provides recommendations for methods to manage and operate voting 
systems to help ensure accurate and secure election results and 
includes general practices for all voting systems and environments, as 
well as controls for specific types of voting equipment. Since 
developing the tool kit, EAC has included additional best practices 
proposed by TGDC and NIST in the appendixes of its draft voting system 
guidelines. These practices recommend that election officials establish 
procedures for their jurisdictions to ensure, among other things, that 
voting systems are physically secured against tampering and intentional 
damage, cryptographic keys for wireless encryption are actively 
managed, actions taken when using wireless communication are logged, 
and the authenticity of certified software is confirmed using the 
National Software Reference Library. EAC plans to update the practices 
in the voting system guidelines and to compile a broader framework of 
guidance for election administration and management practices that 
incorporates the best practices tool kit and further promotes security 
and reliability for voting systems. EAC has begun working with the 
National Association of State Elections Directors to establish a 
working group to develop additional guidelines and procedures for 
election management and operations and has identified the personnel who 
will support this effort. This fall, EAC expects the working group to 
develop a comprehensive outline for the election management guidelines 
document and to prioritize the topics to be developed for the initial 
version scheduled to be released in December 2006. A final report is 
expected in December 2007. 

Tasks and Time Frames for Completing Federal Initiatives Are Not Fully 
Defined: 

While EAC has begun several important initiatives to improve the 
security and reliability of voting systems, more remains to be done on 
these initiatives, and specific tasks and time frames for performing 
them are not fully defined. 

Standards. EAC recognizes that its planned 2005 update to the standards 
does not fully address known weaknesses. EAC and NIST are developing an 
outline for the next iteration of the guidelines, but no date has been 
set for NIST to deliver the next guidelines draft to TGDC. This rewrite 
is expected to extensively change the existing standards and include, 
among other features, quality management for system development, more 
testable standards, and specifications for ballot formats. However, 
neither TGDC nor NIST has defined specific tasks, measurable outcomes, 
milestones, or resource needs for addressing the next draft of 
standards. Consequently, the time frame for states and local 
jurisdictions to implement the security and reliability improvements 
associated with the next version of the standards is unknown. The 
undefined time frame for completing the standards is likely to cause 
concern for states required to comply with the federal standards by 
statute, administrative rule, or condition of HAVA payments, and will 
further delay the adoption of widely acknowledged capabilities needed 
for secure and reliable systems. 

Voting system certification. While EAC is working to define the scope 
of a system certification process, much remains to be done before such 
a process is put in place. Specifically, EAC still needs to establish 
policies, criteria, and procedures to govern certification reviews and 
decisions for existing standards, as well as the proposed 2005 
standards. However, the specific steps and time frames for EAC to 
execute each stage of its certification responsibilities have not yet 
been decided. Until EAC establishes a comprehensive system 
certification program, its processes may be inconsistent or 
insufficiently rigorous to ensure that all certified systems meet 
applicable standards. 

Software library. NIST established a software reference library for 
voting systems, but the usefulness of this library is questionable. The 
initial set of voting system software deposited into the library was 
not comprehensive, no additional voting system software has been 
submitted to the reference library since the 2004 general election, and 
neither EAC nor NIST has identified specific actions to encourage 
participation from states, local jurisdictions, vendors, or independent 
testing authorities for the 2006 federal election cycle. Additionally, 
state and local jurisdictions require specialized tools and technical 
support to verify that reference library software signatures match 
those of their own software versions, but no consolidated and easily 
accessible list of sources for these tools and services is currently 
available to state and local jurisdictions. Further, NIST did not keep 
statistics on the extent to which state and local jurisdictions used 
the library during the 2004 election cycle to verify installation of 
certified software by their vendors, and thus, it could not determine 
whether its service was meeting state and local needs. Without the 
continuous incorporation of certified software into the library and 
processes that can be effectively implemented by state and local 
governments, these entities are likely to face difficulty in ensuring 
that their tested and operational voting systems are the same as those 
that were certified. Further, without a mechanism for determining how 
the library is being used and how it can be improved, the potential 
benefits of the library may be greatly diminished. 

Clearinghouse for information on problems and leading practices. To 
fulfill its role as a clearinghouse for information on voting system 
problems, EAC continues to explore issues of data collection for 
problems with voting systems through enhancing its survey instrument to 
collect problem information from election officials and working with 
NIST to determine how to share this information. However, neither EAC 
nor NIST has defined specific tasks or time lines for establishing 
procedures for sharing problems or a repository for collecting them. 
The continued absence of a national clearinghouse for voting system 
problems means that segments of the election community may continue to 
acquire and operate their systems without the benefit of critical 
information learned by others regarding the security and reliability of 
those systems. Regarding its efforts to develop broad guidance on 
election administration practices, EAC has initial plans for moving 
forward, but lacks a process and schedule for compiling and 
disseminating this information on a regular basis. Until EAC puts such 
a process in place, there is a risk that the guidance it provides may 
become outdated and of little value to election officials. 

Although EAC initiatives are expected to eventually provide more secure 
and reliable systems and more rigorous and consistent quality assurance 
processes for the states and jurisdictions that choose to use them, 
how, when, and to what degree this will be accomplished is not clear. 
Specific steps have not been identified to implement some of the 
initiatives in time to affect the 2006 general election, and others are 
not expected to be completed until after the 2006 election. This 
situation is due, in part, to delays in the appointment of EAC 
commissioners and in funding the commission. As a result, it is unclear 
when the results of these initiatives will be available to assist state 
and local election authorities. 

Nongovernmental Initiatives Are Intended to Improve Voting System 
Security and Reliability: 

In addition to federal initiatives, initiatives by various 
nongovernmental organizations nationwide have been established to 
address the security and reliability of voting systems. Professional 
organizations, academic institutions, and citizen advocacy groups have 
initiatives that affect several areas of the voting system life cycle, 
particularly product development, acquisition, standards, and 
management. Selected initiatives include (1) developing open designs 
for voting system products; (2) identifying issues and key questions to 
be considered by consumers of electronic voting systems; (3) defining 
international standards; and (4) supporting more effective management, 
including collecting, cataloging, and analyzing problems experienced 
during elections. Table 3 summarizes key initiatives. 

Table 3: Nongovernmental Initiatives to Improve Voting System Security 
and Reliability: 

Product development: 

Initiative: Prototype for an open-source electronic voting application; 
Organization: Open Voting Consortium; 
Product or activity: Developed a prototype for an open-source 
electronic voting application that uses commercial hardware and 
operating system components and provides (1) an electronic voting 
machine that prints a paper ballot, (2) a ballot verification station 
that scans the paper ballot and lets a voter hear the selections, and 
(3) an application to tally the paper ballots; 
Status: Continuing to add functionality to prototype. No specific 
timetable. 

Initiative: A Modular Voting Architecture; 
Organization: Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project; 
Product or activity: Proposed an approach for building additional 
security features into electronic voting systems through an alternative 
voting system architecture; 
Status: Completed August 2001. Available for implementation. 

Acquisition: 

Initiative: A Framework for Understanding Electronic Voting; 
Organization: National Academy of Sciences' Computer Science and 
Telecommunications Board; 
Product or activity: Defining questions to help policy makers, election 
officials, and the interested public understand the technology, social, 
and operational issues relevant to electronic voting, including 
security issues; 
Status: Publication expected in fall 2005. 

Initiative: Relative performance of voting system classes; 
Organization: Brennan Center for Justice; 
Product or activity: Started an independent assessment of electronic 
voting system security and plans to develop a report describing the 
relative performance of each class of voting systems; 
Status: To be completed in fall 2005. 

Standards: 

Initiative: Project 1583 on Voting Equipment Standards; 
Organization: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; 
Product or activity: Developing a standard for voting equipment 
requirements and evaluation methods, including security and reliability 
characteristics; 
Status: Project 1583 members in recess. No current plans to resume this 
project's activities. 

Initiative: Project 1622 on Voting Equipment Electronic Data 
Interchange; 
Organization: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; 
Product or activity: Developing data formats to be used by voting 
system components for exchange of electronic data, including data 
related to secure and reliable system operations; 
Status: Project 1622 officials are working to endorse a draft standard. 
No specific timetable. 

Initiative: Election Markup Language; 
Organization: Organization for the Advancement of Structured 
Information Standards; 
Product or activity: Defined process and data requirements that include 
security considerations for authentication, privacy/confidentiality, 
and integrity; 
Status: Officials are seeking approval for this markup language as an 
international standard from the International Organization for 
Standardization. No specific timetable. 

Testing: 

Initiative: Voting System Performance Rating; 
Organization: Voting System Performance Rating; 
Product or activity: Developing evaluation and performance assessment 
tests for use in rating the performance of voting systems in subject 
areas such as privacy, transparency, and ballot verifiability; 
Status: Working groups are being organized and members plan to draft, 
publish, and distribute a range of documents in each of the relevant 
subject areas over the next 2 years. 

Management: 

Initiative: Professional Education Program; 
Organization: The Election Center; 
Product or activity: Created a professional education program designed 
to provide training and certification to election officials and 
vendors; 
Status: Continuing to expand the curriculum. No specific timetable. 

Initiative: Election Incident Reporting System; 
Organization: Verified Voting; 
Product or activity: Operating the Election Incident Reporting System, 
a Web-based system to collect and disseminate information about local 
voting systems and election irregularities; 
Status: Plans to operate through future elections. No specific 
timetable for supporting activities. 

Initiative: Information clearinghouse; 
Organization: VotersUnite!; 
Product or activity: Operating a repository of news and events and a 
newsletter service to share information among advocacy groups and 
jurisdictions on a wide range of electronic voting problems and issues; 
Status: Ongoing postings; Continuation uncertain due to limited 
resources. 

Initiative: A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and 
Transparent Elections; 
Organization: Johns Hopkins University; 
Product or activity: Created a federally funded center that is to 
conduct (1) research into the technological issues facing electronic 
voting, (2) education efforts, aimed at higher education, focusing on 
voting technology issues, and (3) outreach to stakeholders in the 
election administration process, including vendors, election officials, 
and community groups; 
Status: Plans to conduct activities over 5 years. 

Source: GAO summary of data provided by organizations listed above. 

[End of table] 

Conclusions: 

Electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the efficiency, 
accuracy, and accessibility of the elections process, and many are in 
use across the country today. The American public needs to feel 
confident using these systems--namely, that the systems are secure 
enough and reliable enough to trust with their votes. However, this is 
not always the case. Numerous recent studies and reports have 
highlighted problems with the security and reliability of electronic 
voting systems. While these reports often focused on problems with 
specific systems or jurisdictions, the concerns they raise have the 
potential to affect election outcomes. The numerous examples of systems 
with poor security controls point to a situation in which vendors may 
not be uniformly building security and reliability into their voting 
systems, and election officials may not always rigorously ensure the 
security and reliability of their systems when they acquire, test, 
operate, and manage them. 

These concerns have led to action. Multiple organizations have compiled 
recommended practices for vendors and election officials to use to 
improve the security and reliability of voting systems, and EAC has 
initiated activities to improve voluntary voting system standards, 
system testing programs, and management support to state and local 
election authorities. However, important initiatives are unlikely to 
affect the 2006 elections due, at least in part, to delays in the 
appointment of EAC commissioners and in funding the commission. 
Specifically, key security-related improvements to voting system 
standards will not be completed in time, improvements to the national 
system certification program are not yet in place, and efforts to 
provide management support to state and local jurisdictions through a 
software library and information sharing on problems and recommended 
practices remain incomplete. Further, EAC has not consistently defined 
plans, processes, and time frames for completing these activities, and 
as a result, it is unclear when their results will be available to 
assist state and local election officials. Until these efforts are 
completed, there is a risk that many state and local jurisdictions will 
rely on voting systems that were not developed, acquired, tested, 
operated, or managed in accordance with rigorous security and 
reliability standards--potentially affecting the reliability of future 
elections and voter confidence in the accuracy of the vote count. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To improve the potential for benefits to states and local election 
jurisdictions, we recommend that the Election Assistance Commission 
take the following five actions: 

1. Collaborate with NIST and the Technical Guidelines Development 
Committee to define specific tasks, measurable outcomes, milestones, 
and resource needs required to improve the voting system standards that 
affect security and reliability of voting systems. 

2. Expeditiously establish documented policies, criteria, and 
procedures for certifying voting systems that will be in effect until 
the national laboratory accreditation program for voting systems 
becomes fully operational, and define tasks and time frames for 
achieving the full operational capability of the national voting system 
certification program. 

3. Improve management support to state and local election officials by 
collaborating with NIST to establish a process for continuously 
updating the National Software Reference Library for voting system 
software; take effective action to promote use of the library by state 
and local governments; identify and disseminate information on 
resources to assist state and local governments with using the library; 
and assess use of the library by states and local jurisdictions for the 
purpose of improving library services. 

4. Improve management support to state and local election officials by 
collaborating with TGDC and NIST to develop a process and associated 
time frames for sharing information on the problems and vulnerabilities 
of voting systems. 

5. Improve management support to state and local election officials by 
establishing a process and schedule for periodically compiling and 
disseminating recommended practices related to security and reliability 
management throughout the system life cycle (including the recommended 
practices identified in this report) and ensuring that this process 
uses information on the problems and vulnerabilities of voting systems. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

EAC and NIST provided written comments on a draft of this report (see 
apps. V and VI). EAC commissioners agreed with our recommendations and 
stated that actions on each are either under way or intended. NIST's 
director agreed with the report's conclusions that specific tasks, 
processes, and time frames must be established to improve the national 
voting systems standards, testing capabilities, and management support 
available to state and local election officials. 

In addition to its comments on our recommendations, EAC commissioners 
expressed three concerns with our use of reports produced by others to 
identify issues with the security and reliability of electronic voting 
systems. First, they noted that the draft lacked citations linking 
security problems and vulnerabilities to the reports in the 
bibliography and lacked context when referring to experts. We have 
since provided citations and context, where applicable. Second, 
commissioners expressed concern that the report portrays voting system 
problems as systemic, but does not provide context for evaluating the 
extent of the problems--that is, how frequently these issues arise or 
whether the problems occur in a large percentage of electronic voting 
systems or jurisdictions. We do not agree that we portray the problems 
as systemic. Our report states that many of the issues involved 
specific voting system makes and models or circumstances in the 
elections of specific jurisdictions, and that there is a lack of 
consensus on the pervasiveness of the concerns. This is due in part to 
a lack of comprehensive information on what system makes and models are 
used in jurisdictions throughout the country. Nonetheless, the numerous 
examples of systems with poor security controls point to a situation in 
which vendors may not be uniformly building security and reliability 
into their voting systems, and election officials may not always 
rigorously ensure the security and reliability of their systems when 
they acquire, test, operate, and manage them. Third, commissioners 
expressed concern that our report relies on reports produced by others 
without substantiation of the claims made in those reports, and 
provides specific examples that they felt should be verified with 
election officials. While our methodology focused on identifying and 
grouping problems and vulnerabilities identified in issued reports and 
studies, where appropriate and feasible, we sought additional context, 
clarification, and corroboration from the authors, election officials, 
and security experts. In one of the specific examples offered by EAC, 
we understand that the Florida demonstration may not have offered an 
accurate assessment of the system's vulnerabilities to outsiders, but 
it has value in identifying vulnerabilities to knowledgeable insiders. 
In another example, EAC takes issue that we found no concerns with the 
security and reliability during the acquisition phase of the voting 
system life cycle and noted that they learned from state and local 
officials that a number of voting equipment units have recently been 
rejected during the acceptance testing phase of the acquisition process 
demonstrating quality assurance or reliability concerns. We do not 
question EAC's point, but this issue did not surface in the reports we 
analyzed and the interviews we held--so we did not include it in our 
report. This issue, however, shows that there could be security and 
reliability issues that are not documented in existing reports. 
Assessing security and reliability issues and determining their 
pervasiveness are items that EAC can explore and share in its role as a 
clearinghouse for information on problems with electronic voting 
systems. 

EAC commissioners also commented that our report focuses exclusively on 
EAC as the answer to the questions surrounding electronic voting, and 
stated that EAC is but one participant in the process of ensuring the 
reliability and security of voting systems. They noted that while EAC, 
TGDC, and NIST are working to develop a revised set of voting system 
guidelines (standards), it is the voting system vendors that must 
design and configure their systems to meet those guidelines and the 
state and local election officials that must adopt the guidelines and 
restrict their purchases of voting systems to ones that conform to the 
guidelines. While we agree that EAC is one of many entities with 
responsibilities for improving the security and reliability of voting 
systems, given its leadership role in defining voting system standards, 
in establishing programs both to accredit laboratories and to certify 
voting systems, and in acting as a clearinghouse for improvement 
efforts across the nation, we believe that our focus on EAC is 
appropriate and addresses the objective of our requesters regarding the 
actions that federal agencies have taken. 

EAC and NIST officials also provided detailed technical corrections, 
which we incorporated throughout the report as appropriate. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 
days from the report date. At that time, we will send copies of this 
report to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on House 
Administration and to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate 
Committee on Rules and Administration. We are also sending copies to 
the Commissioners and Executive Director of the Election Assistance 
Commission, the Secretary of Commerce, the Director of the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, and other interested parties. In 
addition, the report will be available without charge on GAO's Web site 
at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

Should you have any questions about matters discussed in this report, 
please contact Dave Powner at (202) 512-9286 or at [Hyperlink, 
pownerd@gao.gov] or Randy Hite at (202) 512-3439 or at [Hyperlink, 
hiter@gao.gov]. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 
Relations and Public Affairs can be found on the last page of this 
report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are 
listed in appendix VII. 

Signed by: 

David A. Powner: 
Director, Information Technology Management Issues: 

Signed by: 

Randolph C. Hite: 
Director, Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues: 

List of Congressional Requesters: 

The Honorable Tom Davis: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Henry A. Waxman: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Committee on Government Reform: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Jim Sensenbrenner, Jr.: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr.: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Committee on the Judiciary: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Sherwood L. Boehlert: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Bart Gordon: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Committee on Science: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable William Lacy Clay: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable John B. Larson: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Todd Platts: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Adam Putnam: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Robert C. Scott: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Christopher Shays: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Michael Turner: 
House of Representatives: 

[End of section] 

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Our objectives were to (1) determine significant security and 
reliability concerns that have been identified for electronic voting 
systems; (2) identify recommended practices relevant to the security 
and reliability of such systems; and (3) describe the actions that 
federal agencies and other organizations have taken, or plan to take, 
to improve the security and reliability of electronic voting systems. 
Our work focused on the security and reliability of optical scanning 
and direct recording electronic voting systems, which includes 
equipment for defining ballots, casting and counting ballots, managing 
groups of interconnected electronic components, and transmitting voting 
results and administrative information among the locations supporting 
the voting process. 

To determine significant security and reliability concerns and identify 
recommended practices, we conducted a broad literature search for 
existing published electronic voting studies. Our search included the 
use of Internet sources, technical libraries, professional and 
technical journals, and bibliographic information from articles and 
documents we obtained. We also collected citations and contacts during 
interviews with relevant officials and experts. To corroborate and 
provide context for identified concerns and recommended practices, we 
interviewed federal officials, election officials, computer and 
information security experts, industry officials, and citizen advocacy 
groups. Our interviews also included officials from nongovernmental 
organizations involved with elections and electronic voting issues, as 
well as members of our Executive Council on Information Management and 
Technology. In addition, we examined testimony made before pertinent 
federal bodies and other source material to provide supporting 
information. 

Through our literature search, we identified a number of reports that 
addressed electronic voting issues. We organized these reports into 
several content areas, including system security assessments, 
reliability issues, general security issues, practices and 
recommendations, and statistical analyses. To identify the most 
relevant sources for our work, we then selected those reports that best 
met selection criteria that we developed. The selection criteria 
included the extent to which the report specifically addressed the 
security and reliability of electronic voting systems and recommended 
practices relevant to these systems; whether original data analysis was 
conducted; author knowledge and experience; endorsements by pertinent 
government organizations (which were often sponsors of reports); and 
the authenticity of available copies of the report. We were interested 
in targeting the more recent literature, but we included earlier 
reports that were deemed particularly relevant to the objectives of our 
work.[Footnote 89] To assist in our assessment of the reliability of 
each report's findings, we also conducted reviews of a report's 
methodology, including its limitations, data sources