Sponsored and organized by the Caltech-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)/Voting Technology Project, the Workshop on Election Standards and Technology (WEST 2002) will feature presentations from David Karmol, the Institute's director of government affairs and public policy, and IEEE, an ANSI member and ANSI-accredited standards developer, who is currently developing standards for election system engineering and voting technology equipment. Karmol will participate on a panel discussing the Procedures for Establishing Standards. Karmol will explain the benefits of ANS procedures versus other methods of standardization as well as the process by which government adoption of voluntary standards is achieved.
Commenting on the significance of WEST 2002 and the Institute's role in election reform, Karmol said, "ANSI's participation in this workshop reflects our ongoing commitment to assist in strengthening America's voting system." Late last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the 'Help America Vote Act,' which recognized the Institute's leading role in the standards community and requested its participation on a committee, chaired by the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to assist a federal government commission in the development of voluntary standards and modifications to existing standards for voting systems and equipment.
The Institute has been involved in the government-led initiative on election reform since last year when ANSI was invited by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to participate in a public review and comment of proposed legislation to establish voluntary standards for voting machines. At that time, ANSI disseminated an alert to its membership urging them to participate in this initiative. IEEE responded to the request and met the FEC and others on the need for a systems engineering approach in the design of voting technology throughout the U.S.
"As an ANSI-accredited standards developer," Karmol continued, "IEEE's role in developing these two standards ensures the best possible results, because the ANS procedures that IEEE will adhere to prescribe a public review and comment of the content of the proposed standards, which will allow the widest possible audience input to the documents." IEEE currently has 130 professionals to assist in their election standards committee work and will follow its accredited organizational operating procedures for developing consensus, which are accredited to the requirements contained in the ANSI Procedures for the Development and Coordination of ANS.
This two-day workshop was organized by the Caltech-MIT/Voting Technology Project and designed to reach policy makers and congressional staff. Established in December 2000 to prevent a recurrence of the problems that threatened the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, the project's tasks are to evaluate the current state of reliability and uniformity of U.S. voting systems; establish uniform attributes and quantitative guidelines for performance and reliability of voting systems; and propose specific uniform guidelines and requirements for reliable voting systems.
For additional information, please contact, David Karmol at 202.331.3610 or [email protected].
The IEEE helps advance global prosperity by promoting the engineering process of creating, developing, integrating, sharing and applying knowledge about electrical and information technologies and sciences for the benefit of humanity and the profession.