IEEE P1622 Meeting, Feb 2011

Common Data Format (CDF) Update

John P. WackNational Institute of Standards and

Technology

http://vote.nist.gov

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Outline What is a CDF? Why have one? What’s in the VVSGs? Charge from EAC Current plans

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Electronic Election Data Includes

Voter registration data base (VRDB) information Ballot definition and presentation Voted ballot information Tabulated election results Election management system (EMS)

information System logs, audit data

Much of it in proprietary, disparate formats

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Common Data Format (CDF)

An Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based format designed around the needs of elections

Could be used as input into voting systems, e.g., from a VRDB that outputs in a CDF

Could be used between devices, e.g., scanner could write data in a CDF to be read by an EMS

Obviously, all must use the exact same CDF

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Potential Benefits of a CDF Voting devices from different

manufacturers could interoperate An interoperable CDF could help

automate testing, better constrain testing costs

Could expand certification model to devices as opposed to entire system

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Could provide more transparency and audit capability to device operations

Election jurisdictions could share data more easily with other DB’s, applications

Could help bring potential manufacturers of specialty devices into the market

Could open market to more manufacturers in general and empower election officials

Potential Benefits of a CDF

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VVSG 1.0, 1.1 have no CDF requirements VVSG 2.0 requires non-proprietary formats but

not a common format for Data exported/exchanged between systems Election programming, export of cast vote records Reports, audit data

Has a SHOULD requirement: Manufacturers SHOULD use a common format across their product line and in general

What the VVSGs Say…

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Charge from EAC Election Assistance Commission (EAC) interested in

interoperability An interoperable CDF could help automate testing, better

constrain testing costs Could open market to more manufacturers Could expand certification model to components as

opposed to entire system Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) to

reference a CDF in VVSG 2.0 TGDC/NIST to develop CDF specifications to assist

Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) for electronic blank ballot delivery

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Work with P1622 to produce 1622.x standards, reference them in EAC VVSGs

Assist in developing ‘use case’ documents and eventual schemas

Work with FVAP in UOCAVA areas NIST/IEEE developing use case, eventual schemas for a 1622.x

UOCAVA CDF specification by Summer 2011 Need to decide on a format to use as basis for use case

development Could develop reference implementations for 1622.x

standards to facilitate adoption, testing Goal – develop and recommend a draft CDF standard by 2012

NIST/IEEE Strategy

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Road Ahead Other use cases are under current

development in P1622: Post-election tabulation auditing – Neal

McBurnett Remote ballot printing for UOCAVA – Arthur

Keller Interoperability – Ian Piper

Need to develop a timeline and prioritized list of use cases

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Use Case Timeline Other use cases include…

Voter registration DB export Electronic pollbook interfaces Device event logging Cast ballot record EMS tabulation

P1622 and TGDC to debate, prioritize Important to make wise decisions so as to

maximize CDF usage

IEEE P1622 Meeting, Feb 2011

Discussion

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