An informal guide to Election Terminology. Use at your own risk.
DRE (Direct Recording Equipment) - a voting machine consisting of a monitor to view the ballot and a touchscreen or mechanical means to indicate the voter's selections. The vote is recorded electronically on a removable computer memory card. In California, these are required to include AVVPATs (see below). Examples: Diebold TSx, ES&S iVotronic, Sequoia Edge, and Hart Intercivic. The first three include touchscreens while the Intercivic includes a monitor and wheel (like a mouse) for making selections.
Ballot Marking Device - a machine which will mark a voter's selections on a preprinted paper ballot. Example: ES&S AutoMark.
Ballot Printing Device - a machine which will print a ballot including the voter's selections. Example: Populex.
AVVPAT (Accessible Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) - A printer attached to a DRE which prints the voter's selections, which the voter can review before casting their ballot electronically. In most systems, the AVVPAT paper printout is behind glass so the voter can only view it, but not touch it or pick it up.
Phantom votes - the excess of votes reported over votes cast. Since no-one knows which votes are the phantom votes, all the votes are still counted. This should never happen, but does, especially on DRE systems.
Overvote - when a voter votes for more than the number of candidates to be elected. E.g. voting for two candidates for President or voting for 4 candidates for school board when only three seats are open.
Undervote - when a voter does not vote for any candidate for an office, e.g. not voting for President, or votes for few than he or she could, e.g. voting for 2 candidates when 3 will be elected, or not voting for a proposition.
Residual - the sum of the overvotes and undervotes. A high residual is bad, indicating problems. A low residual is desirable, although there may still be problems.
Transparency - the ability of the voter to tell whether their vote is accurately reported and accurately counted.
EAC - Election Assistance Commission. A Federal agency which sets standards for voting equipment and voting equipment certifiers. See http://www.eac.gov.
Federal Qualification - a voting system has been examined and approved by one of the federal testing labs (ITAs). They evaluate certain factors, but do not examine the programs or computer security used in the voting system.
ITA - ITA stands for Independent Testing Authority. These are the companies which may examine and qualify voting systems. They are paid by the vendor to examine and hopefully qualify the vendor's voting system, which means they are not truly independent. There are currently only three ITAs recognized by the EAC.
HAVA, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 - HAVA provides billions of dollars to states to replace puch card systems and to insure there will be at least one "accessible" voting station in each polling location at which disabled voters can vote in private without assistance. The funds are supposed to be spent by the end of 2005, which clearly is not going to happen. California's share is in the $200-350 million range.
COTS - Commercial off-the-shelf software; i.e. not specially adapted or produced for voting systems. COTS software is not examined in detail in qualification and certification and not generally required to be escrowed.
VMB, Voting Modernization Board (California) - A Secretary of State Board which allocates and supervises spending the money from Prop. 41, passed by the voters in 2002, which provides $200 million in state money to the counties to modernize voting systems. The same formula is being used to distribute HAVA funds.
VSPP, Voting Systems and Procedures Panel (California) - a Secretary of State Panel which decides which voting systems are certified for use in California and which must be replaced. So far, as of December 28, 2005, there is one system certified for use both in primaries and general elections, the ES&S AutoMark, and one certified only for general elections, the Sequoia Edge. The VSPP has been disbanded, but the process is still the same.
JB: December 28, 2005