Election Data Standards Requirements:Getting on with what we’ve got

John L. McCarthy, volunteerVerified Voting Foundation

Common Elections Data Format WorkshopNational Institute for Standards and Technology

Gaithersburg, Maryland 29-30 October, 2009

John L. McCarthy Election Data Standards Requirements – October 2009 NIST Workshop slide 2 of xxxPrinted

Overview & Review Background for election data standards

• Who needs & uses election data? (clients)

• What kinds of election data are required?

• When are election data needed for what purposes?

• What objectives would data standards help meet?

• How are these needs currently being met?– in the United States?– In other countries?

• What characterizes good data format standards?

• Why can’t we simply use EML (& extend as necessary)?– OASIS Election Markup Language (dialect of W3C XML)

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Who needs & uses election data (& how)?Potential clients for election data standards

• Voting systems vendors and system developers– component communications, system integration, testing, reporting

• Election officials – local, state, and national (EAC, …)– ballot definition, testing, reporting, aggregation, auditing

• Election management consultants & contractors– systems integration, contract work for election officials

• News media (TV, radio, print, web)– reporting results, predicting outcomes & analyzing trends

• Candidates, political parties & organizations– deciding whether to concede, claim victory or dispute results

• Citizens, citizen organizations & academic researchers– pre and post election auditing, analyzing detailed results

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What kinds of election data are required?

• Election districts & district boundaries

• Voter registration information & eligible voter lists

• Candidate nominations & approved candidate lists

• Referendum options and approved options lists

• Ballot definition information (for each jurisdiction)

• Election vote records, counts, results, and statistics

• Cast Vote Records (CVR) for each individual ballot– including outcomes for each voting opportunity (choice)– e.g., vote recorded, blank, too many choices, unrecognized

• Logs from each individual piece of voting equipment

• Audit information pertinent to all the above categories

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What detailed components are needed for vote tabulation audits?

•GEOGRAPHIC IDENTIFIERS– State, County– Sub-county jurisdiction(s), if any (e.g., city, township)– Precinct– Other Aggregation Unit Identifiers (e.g., state assembly district, water

district)

•Voting Method (early, absentee, in-precinct, provisional,

•Ballot Type and/or party (for primary elections)

•FOR EACH CONTEST– Contest (e.g., Governor, State Assembly, City Council, Water Board)– Choice (candidate or position Y/N)

Summary records typically contain counts for each choice and some systems’ cast vote records for individual ballots may show how each choice was counted -- vote, blank, too many choices (overvote), or unrecognized mark.

SoS’s & others also need standards for various types of election audit reports

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When are election data needed?

• Preceding an election– system development & testing– logic and accuracy testing & test results– jurisdiction boundaries, ballot types, voting places– ballot design and contents (candidates, ballot measures, etc.)– registered & eligible voters

• During an election– problem reports– individuals who have voted

• Election night– detailed vote counts by polling place, type (in-person, absentee),

candidate, ballot measure choices, overvotes, undervotes– Individual Cast Vote Records (CVR) for each ballot

• Before certification of final results– audit results, including resolution of any discrepancies found

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Objectives that election data standards can help us achieve

• Timely & Transparent Reporting– aggregation within local jurisdictions & from local to state– to media, interested organizations & the general public– to help support pre and post-election auditing

• Lower costs & improved Accuracy– Improve transparency & testing of ballot definition– connect registration, pollbooks, and reporting– facilitate transition to electronic record-keeping

• Interoperability– between components from a single vendor– among different components from different vendors

• Auditability– detailed data available immediately following each election– machine-readable reports broken down in arbitrary ways

John L. McCarthy Election Data Standards Requirements – October 2009 NIST Workshop slide 8 of xxxPrinted

How are these needs currently being met?

• In the United States…– very little standardization

• data exchange via poorly documented proprietary formats• election management systems produce human readable reports

– some exceptions • CA SoS media feed 2008, 2009• IL translation programs for EAC data collection grant program

• In other countries– Council of Europe recommends EML for interoperability (2004)– Australian Electoral Commission EML Media Feed (since 2007)– UK e-voting pilots and CORE registration project use EML– Belgium uses EML for local elections in Flanders (2006-7)– Others?

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What kinds of data and metadata do current commercial vote tabulation systems provide?

Human Readable Reports e.g., Hart-Intercivic (Crystal Reports)

John L. McCarthy Election Data Standards Requirements – October 2009 NIST Workshop slide 10 of xxxPrinted

What would characterize good election data format standards?

• Machine-readable, structured components– separate elements for each distinct type of information

• (e.g., state, county, precinct, type, contest, candidate, undervotes)– easy to render into different formats– modular structures/schemas for different kinds of data

• (e.g., ballot definition, geography, tabulation results, …)

• Well-defined and documented data elements & structures– preferably defined by & data verifiable via formal schema

• Quasi-human-readable– data volume does not require serious compression (e.g., ASN.1)– easy to render into different human-readable & machine formats

• Compatible with tools for translation, rendering & storage– e.g., XML: style sheets, schema, databases; web services; XSLT

• Developed through standards consensus process– input and discussion from all stake-holders, trial use, etc.

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Doesn’t EML (Election Markup Language) meet most if not all of these requirements?

• Dialect of XML (current lingua franca for data exchange)

• Developed by OASIS Technical Committee (since 2001)– participation by vendors and election experts– currently completing work on version 6.0 (still time for feedback!)– OASIS will propose EML 6.0 as ISO standard early in 2010

• Flexible, extensible, modular framework– version 6.0 includes new elements & features to support US voting– V 6.0 meets most known election requirements

• Already used by a number of organizations & jurisdictions– California & Australia media feeds, etc.– ES&S, Hart-Intercivic (EDX XML variant), EDS, IBM, more in Europe

• For more info, see http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=election#expository

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What are primary objections, barriers, and counter-arguments to use of EML?

• Too new ?– development of multiple versions since 2001– used successfully in growing number of jurisdictions

• Competing approaches & standards ?– IEEE Voting Systems Electronic Data Interchange Project 1622

• temporarily deactivated because TC "failed to achieve balance" – Comma-delimited spreadsheet format

• No schema to enforce data input requirements• Require multiple tables to supported nested repeating groups• Would have to develop table and column definitions, etc.

• Too complex and/or missing features ?– can ignore modules that are not applicable– Easy to extend and add new features using XML (e.g. audit reports)

• Implementation costs ?– 3 major vendors already use EML or XML in significant ways– Lots of tools to support XML development and use

John L. McCarthy Election Data Standards Requirements – October 2009 NIST Workshop slide 13 of xxxPrinted

The need is urgent…Now is the time to act

• Election auditing requires a single standard set of formats– statement from last week’s meeting on election auditing at ASA

• States are beginning to implement electronic reporting– California 6 county experiment & plans to expand to statewide– Illinois plans statewide integrated voting & elections system

• Need for national archive of election data – for policy makers, legislators, academic researchers– current election day survey data is inadequate

• not timely, detailed data not easily available in standard formats• EAC data collection grant project results can provide insights

• If EML is deficient, we can propose revisions for v6– but should do so in the next couple of months

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Opportunities for participation

• Election Data Standards Email list (& google sites wiki)– electiondatastandards@verifiedvoting.org

• Try new election data software & help improve it – Auditing software from CO (McBurnett), UC Berkeley (Stark), …– VTS translation software from IL?

• EML & enhancements for version 6 – OASIS Elections & Voter Services Technical Committee– Joe Hall, David Webber, others– www.oasis-open.org/committees/election/

• NIST, TGDC, VVSG– Urge EAC and/or NIST to become active members of OASIS TC– create documentation & guidelines to facilitate adoption

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Thanks to ….

• Verified Voting Foundation & President Pam Smith

• Election Data Standards and Auditing Lists

• American Statistical Association & Steve Pierson

• David Webber, OVS/OASIS

• John Sebes, Open Source Digital Voting Foundation

• Neal McBurnett, Boulder, Colorado

• Scott Hilkert & Catalyst Consulting associates, Chicago

• participants in last week’s election auditing meeting

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Example XML data fragment<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> - <election type="GE" name="General Election" date="11/4/2008">- <state id="IL" name="Illinois">- <jurisdiction id="2402" name="Alexander County" federalId="1700300000">- <contest id="4" name="12TH CONGRESS" polling="3167" absentee="0" early="487" grace="0" provisional="0" total="3654">  <specialCount type="blankVotes" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" /> - <specialCount type="underVotes" polling="283" absentee="0" early="88" grace="0" provisional="0" total="371">  <precinct name="CAIRO 1" polling="57" absentee="0" early="14" grace="0" provisional="0" total="71" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 2" polling="37" absentee="0" early="21" grace="0" provisional="0" total="58" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 3" polling="16" absentee="0" early="14" grace="0" provisional="0" total="30" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 4" polling="22" absentee="0" early="14" grace="0" provisional="0" total="36" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 5" polling="19" absentee="0" early="9" grace="0" provisional="0" total="28" />   <precinct name="CACHE" polling="9" absentee="0" early="5" grace="0" provisional="0" total="14" />   <precinct name="SANDUSKY" polling="7" absentee="0" early="2" grace="0" provisional="0" total="9" />   <precinct name="TAMMS" polling="39" absentee="0" early="1" grace="0" provisional="0" total="40" />   <precinct name="MCCLURE" polling="29" absentee="0" early="2" grace="0" provisional="0" total="31" />   <precinct name="THEBES" polling="19" absentee="0" early="1" grace="0" provisional="0" total="20" />   <precinct name="OLIVE BRANCH" polling="29" absentee="0" early="5" grace="0" provisional="0" total="34" />   </specialCount>- <specialCount type="overVotes" polling="5" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="5">  <precinct name="CAIRO 1" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 2" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 3" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 4" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 5" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="CACHE" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="SANDUSKY" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="TAMMS" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="MCCLURE" polling="3" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="3" />   <precinct name="THEBES" polling="0" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="0" />   <precinct name="OLIVE BRANCH" polling="2" absentee="0" early="0" grace="0" provisional="0" total="2" />   </specialCount>- <choice id="18" name="JERRY F. COSTELLO" party="DEM" polling="2330" absentee="0" early="411" grace="0" provisional="0" total="2741">  <precinct name="CAIRO 1" polling="162" absentee="0" early="55" grace="0" provisional="0" total="217" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 2" polling="197" absentee="0" early="63" grace="0" provisional="0" total="260" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 3" polling="101" absentee="0" early="26" grace="0" provisional="0" total="127" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 4" polling="189" absentee="0" early="52" grace="0" provisional="0" total="241" />   <precinct name="CAIRO 5" polling="207" absentee="0" early="49" grace="0" provisional="0" total="256" />   <precinct name="CACHE" polling="137" absentee="0" early="25" grace="0" provisional="0" total="162" />   <precinct name="SANDUSKY" polling="120" absentee="0" early="18" grace="0" provisional="0" total="138" />   <precinct name="TAMMS" polling="392" absentee="0" early="26" grace="0" provisional="0" total="418" />   <precinct name="MCCLURE" polling="282" absentee="0" early="31" grace="0" provisional="0" total="313" />   <precinct name="THEBES" polling="218" absentee="0" early="37" grace="0" provisional="0" total="255" />   <precinct name="OLIVE BRANCH" polling="325" absentee="0" early="29" grace="0" provisional="0" total="354" />   </choice>