Sec. 301. Development of standards

279 words·~1 min read·/bill/115/hr/1907/ih/section-301

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The Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall develop standards for ensuring that the process by which ballots are counted in elections for Federal office is transparent and permits voters to verify that votes in such elections are counted correctly. In developing standards under this title, the Director shall ensure the following: Election officials will provide the public with sufficient evidence to verify the results of an election for Federal office, including through the establishment of tracking procedures that permit members of the public to track the ballots counted in the election, so long as such procedures ensure the anonymity of the individuals who cast the ballots.

All of the data used or produced by the relevant components of a voting system used in an election for Federal office. Election officials shall make all of the relevant components of a voting system used in an election for Federal office available to other parties (such as other officials of the State, research organizations, and institutions of higher education) to duplicate the testing procedures used to certify the use of the system for use in such elections. The Director shall develop the standards under this title not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act.

The Director may update the standards under this title at such times as the Director considers appropriate. In this section, the term relevant components means, with respect to a voting system, each component of the system which is involved with counting ballots and producing a tally of the ballots cast, including the source code, build tools, build procedure documentation, test plans, test fixtures, and software and hardware specifications.