USC/ISI Voting Systems Institute

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Herb Schorr <schorr () isi edu>
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 14:19:27 -0800
To: <dave () farber net>
Cc: Herb Schorr <schorr () isi edu>


Recently  USC/ISI <http://isi.edu/> announced the creation of the
Voting Systems Institute <http://www.votinginstitute.org/> (VSI)
through its Digital Government Research Center <http://www.dgrc.org/>.

We formed VSI in partnership with the Center for Governmental Studies
<http://cgs.org/> which is a  LA-based nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization which implements technology for public policy reform and
voting projects.

VSI is supporting a coalition of voting stakeholders and experts in
implementing Voting System Performance Rating <http://www.vspr.org/>
(VSRP).  They're basically applying a lot of the lessons we learned in
creating Internet standards through IETF <http://www.ietf.org/>.

It's exciting because it's the first time that such a broad-based group

has come together with the goal of formally agreeing on specific ways
of testing and assessing voting technology.  They're committed to
publishing assessment criteria and tests so that independent, 3rd
parties and vendors can rate the performance of voting systems
nationwide.  Like IETF, all of VSPR's deliberations will be public and
the published standards are validated by vote.

Voting has struggled to understand and adopt the best technologies and
we think this is a pretty interesting and exciting way to drive
responsible and appropriate technology adoption in what's obviously a
critical area.

Relevant links are above and on the sites themselves.  Newsweek covered

it this week <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6885237/site/newsweek> as did

CNET  
<http://news.com.com/Standards+aim+to+secure+e-voting+systems/2100
-1028_3-5557926.html> and we issued a press release as well
<http://www.vspr.org/press/cgs-dgrc-vsi-launch.pdf>.

You can go to the site to track progress, sign up for email-based
updates, participate on VSPR listservs or join VSPR at
<http://www.vspr.org>.


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