Most U.S. election jurisdictions (states, counties, cities, or other subjurisdictions) use voting machines to tally votes, and in some cases also to mark votes on paper. In most U.S. states, before a jurisdiction within the state can adopt the use of a particular voting machine, the Secretary of State appoints a committee to examine the machine, and based on the committee’s report the Secretary certifies (or declines to certify) the machine for use in elections.
Earlier this year, Hart Intercivic submitted its new suite of voting machines, called the Verity Vanguard 1.0 system, to the Secretary of State of Texas for examination. Texas appointed a committee (four members appointed by the SoS, two by the Attorney General) to conduct this examination. I was appointed to this committee by the Attorney General.
The Secretary of State has now published the reports of the committee members, including my own. In the Texas procedure, there is no jointly authored comittee report, just individual reports making recommendations to the Secretary regarding whether the voting system is suitable for use in Texas elections. Based on these reports, the Secretary will make a decision on certification (after a public hearing).
- Report of Andrew Appel
- Report of Brandon Hurley
- Report of Brian Mechler
- Report of Chuck Pinney
- Report of Justin Gordon
- Report of Ryan Macias
I found the Texas process to be thorough, fact-based, nonpartisan, and a good-faith effort to understand the workings of the system and its compliance with Texas law and U.S. law. The committee included both technical experts and lawyers. Several members of the committee had significant expertise relevant to the task at hand. Members of the committee read hundreds of pages of technical documentation submitted by Hart, including reports from a voting-system test lab that had examined the hardware and software. Then a meeting of three full days was conducted, in which members of the committee interacted with the equipment and were able to ask detailed technical questions of the Hart engineers present at the meeting.
In this blog article I will not describe the Verity Vanguard system components or my opinions of them; my report can speak for itself.
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