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UNITED STATES ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION

PUBLIC MEETING

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2005 - 1:00 P.M.

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THE ADAM'S MARK HOTEL

DENVER, COLORADO

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1 CHAIR HILLMAN: Okay, this hearing of the

2 United States Election Commission will come to

3 order. Before we begin, just a couple of

4 announcements, may I ask everybody to make sure

5 that your phones, pagers, and all other electronic

6 devices are either turned off or silenced, so as

7 not to disrupt the proceedings. This meeting is

8 scheduled to run from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. There will

9 be three panels and it will end with a 30 minute

10 period, in which various individuals have signed up

11 to do short testimonies. Please stand and join me

12 in the Pledge of Allegiance.

13 ALL: I pledge allegiance to the flag of

14 the United States of America, and to the Republic

15 for which it stands, one Nation, under God,

16 individual, with liberty and justice for all.

17 CHAIR HILLMAN: If we could have a roll

18 call, please?

19 MS. THOMPSON: Thank you, Madame Chair.

20 Commissioners, please answer by saying present or

21 here when I call your name. Gracia Hillman, Chair?

22 CHAIR HILLMAN: Here.

23 MS. THOMPSON: Paul Degregorio, Vice-

24 Chairman?

25 MR. DEGREGORIO: Here.

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1 MS. THOMPSON: Ray Martinez,

2 Commissioner?

3 MR. MARTINEZ: Here.

4 MS. THOMPSON: Donetta Davidson,

5 Commissioner?

6 MS. DAVIDSON: Here.

7 MS. THOMPSON: Madame Chair, that is four

8 members present.

9 CHAIR HILLMAN: Thank you. We have

10 before us the agenda for today's hearing. Are

11 there any changes to the agenda? If not, it would

12 be appropriate to adopt the agenda.

13 MS. DAVIDSON: So moved.

14 MR. MARTINEZ: Second.

15 CHAIR HILLMAN: All in favor?

16 MS. DAVIDSON: I.

17 MR. MARTINEZ: I.

18 MR. DEGREGORIO: I.

19 CHAIR HILLMAN: Okay. Presentations on

20 proposed Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, that

21 is the subject of today's hearing. This is the

22 third of three hearings that the Election

23 Assistance Commission is holding on the proposed

24 Guidelines. The Guidelines were posted for public

25 comment on or about the 29th of June. They will be

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1 available for public comment for a 90 day period,

2 which means the end of the comment period is about

3 September 30. In addition to the comments that we

4 have received via e-mail, and fax, and other

5 mechanisms to our offices, we are receiving

6 testimony from individuals who we have invited to

7 present for us, or individuals who have signed up

8 for the public comment period. All of it provides

9 invaluable information and insight into the work

10 that we are doing. This is, of course, the first

11 time that the Election Assistance Commission will

12 be issuing Voluntary Voting System Guidelines under

13 its authority, as mandated by the Help America Vote

14 Act. This is a process that we take very

15 seriously. It's a huge task. It's an enormous

16 responsibility, but a very important one. And

17 while many of the issues that we address are very

18 technical in nature, this also speaks to the

19 essence of the confidence that the voters have in

20 the voting systems that they use when they go to

21 the polls to vote on election day. And so, without

22 further comment, unless there are any opening

23 remarks from Commissioners -- no? We will get into

24 the panel. Our first panel, local election

25 officials, and in the order that they will present,

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1 we have Bob Terwilliger?

2 MR. TERWILLIGER: That's right.

3 CHAIR HILLMAN: Terwilliger, I'm going to

4 keep saying that and it's going to roll right up --

5 who is Auditor Snohomish [phonetic], am I doing

6 that right?

7 MR. TERWILLIGER: Um-hmm.

8 CHAIR HILLMAN: That is such a challenge,

9 I love it -- Snohomish County, Washington. Also

10 with us is Lance Grough, Executive Director of the

11 Chicago Board of Elections, and Russ Ragsdale,

12 Clerk and Recorder, City and County of Broomfield.

13 That means the City is Broomfield and the county is

14 Broomfield?

15 MR. GROUGH: Yes, ma'am.

16 CHAIR HILLMAN: That's great, terrific.

17 Thank you very much for accepting the invitation to

18 be here. And we will begin, I understand that we

19 each have written testimony from the three of you,

20 so we do have that to refer to. And we ask that

21 you take up to about seven minutes to just do a

22 review and overview of your testimony, and then we

23 will have questions to follow that. Thank you.

24 MR. TERWILLIGER: Thank you, Madame

25 Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to be here

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1 today. My name is Bob Terwilliger. I am currently

2 the elected Snohomish County auditor from the State

3 of Washington. I've been the elected auditor since

4 1993, and for ten years before that I was Chief

5 Deputy Auditor. In addition, I have a law degree

6 and served three years in the Snohomish County

7 Prosecuting Attorney's Office, as a Deputy

8 Prosecuting Attorney, advising the County Auditor's

9 Office on legal matters related to Election Law.

10 I'm also a member of the EAC Standards Board, so

11 I've been directly and indirectly in the elections

12 and voter registration business for over 25 years.

13 It's clear that since the presidential elections of

14 2000 and 2004, and in the State of Washington since

15 the governor's race in 2004, the public in general

16 and various interest groups, specifically, have

17 become interested, energized, and involved in all

18 aspects of election and voter registration

19 processes. This, I believe, is long overdue and is

20 good in healthy turn of events. Nowhere is this

21 interest more prevalent than in and around the

22 concern for how election tabulation software and

23 hardware is developed, manufactured, tested, and

24 deployed, and used in the process of counting

25 ballots. This series of events involves vendors,

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1 election officials, testing authorities, and the

2 public. The purpose of my comments today is to

3 offer my impression of the draft Voting System

4 Guidelines, volume one. My comments are limited to

5 two through six. The sections dealing with issues

6 outlined in seven through nine are the [inaudible]

7 well founded in the concepts and precepts of

8 computers, and the associated technology,

9 performance standards, and testing standards which

10 is well beyond my expertise. In general, I believe

11 the standards set forth in sections two through six

12 follow common sense precepts that, to a large

13 degree, are already followed by elections officials

14 around the country. As you have experts here to

15 talk about the accessibility issues for the

16 disabled, my only comment on those sections is that

17 the level of specificity and the breadth of

18 populations intended to be served by those

19 standards will all add additional costs. For many

20 jurisdictions, even with the HAVA money, the cost

21 implications are overwhelming, and certainly will

22 be so once the HAVA money is gone. Therefore, it is

23 critical that the mandatory requirements for voters

24 with disabilities be limited to serve the largest

25 numbers of a disabled community is possible, while

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1 at the same time recognizing that not every single

2 disability can be accommodated in a polling place

3 environment. As a county that converted its

4 polling placing environment from one of optical

5 scan central count to electronic DRE central count

6 in 2002, I am especially interested in the sections

7 dealing with electronic voting. In our county,

8 650,000 population, 359,000 registered voters,

9 220,000 who vote by mail, we have deployed

10 electronic voting without any major mishaps. We do

11 not use any wireless communication mode. We do not

12 transmit any data via the internet. We have a

13 stand alone, central count, ballot tabulation

14 environment. We count all ballots centrally. We

15 employ parallel monitoring for all elections. We

16 calculate pre-logic and accuracy test to all

17 machines to be deployed in any given election. And

18 we also conduct a logic and accuracy test,

19 supervised by the Secretary of State's office,

20 three days before the election, and again on

21 election day before we count ballots. And finally,

22 we conduct a post-election logic and accuracy test

23 on all machines used in the election. We understand

24 the need to demonstrate the trustworthiness of

25 votes cast on electronic voting machines. One area

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1 over which counties, and to a large degree, the

2 state election offices as well have had to rely on

3 has been the area of testing the hardware and

4 software by independent testing laboratories. The

5 requirements for more rigorous testing for hardware

6 and software is set forth in sections three and

7 four are, in my opinion, are long overdue. My only

8 suggestion would be to move rapidly to certify more

9 independent testing authorities, and to require

10 their process of testing be open to the public so

11 trust can be built wit the public regarding the

12 testing process. For example, if there was

13 sufficient testing authorities certified on a

14 regional basis, then those interested members of

15 the public, or interest groups in a region, could

16 attend the testing process to ensure that the

17 standards, as adopted by the EAC are being adhered

18 to on a regular basis. More openness about the

19 testing of the source code, while at the same time

20 protecting proprietary interests of the vendors is

21 a good thing. Also, the records of the software and

22 hardware that have been tested and certified must

23 always be current, and what is being used in the

24 local jurisdictions must always correspond to what

25 has been tested and certified. Section five talks