2011: A Look Ahead; Another Glance Back

As Greg said in his New Year’s posting, we’ve been planning a variety of activities for 2011, and reflecting on what we did in 2010, much that remains to do, and to do better. But at the risk of boring you with a laundry list, I wanted to provide some additional detail on some of the 2010 activities that Greg mentioned. Many of the items listed below serve to indicate how much of the work in election technology (ours and others) has to get very detail oriented in order to actually deliver.

Voter Registration

• Released version 2.0 of the TTV Online Voter Registration tool.
• Put OVRv2 into production, operated by Open Source Labs and managed by RockTheVote.
• Under RTV’s management, OVR has served well over 200,000 registrants for the 2010 election cycle, nearing the quarter-million total.

Election Management System

• First-ever open source election management software deployed for use in DC and VA overseas voting projects in November 2010 elections.
• TTV Election Manager supports DC legacy data formats, VIP standard election data for VA, DC-specific jurisdiction definitions, and first-ever new VA custom jurisdictions for local referenda.
• First-ever system for computing and proofing and entire state’s worth of election data and ballot definitions.

Ballot Design

• First-ever open source paper ballot design system supports local and state specific ballot formats and composition rules for multiple jurisdictions including DC, VA, NH
• For VA statewide election, over 2,700 locality-specific ballots generated, including first-ever state-law compliant ballots for special classes of non-local UOCAVA voters.
• First-ever generation of dual-use ballot documents, the same document marked either digitally or physically to become the same legal paper ballot of record.

Overseas Ballot Distribution

• Fully localized ballots delivered to thousands of UOCAVA voters worldwide
• Data integration with state voter record databases, ensuring every eligible UOCAVA voter gets their correct ballot
• Public test of Digital Ballot Return – a controversial activity with many lessons learned on all sides, but we’re proud to have supported the D.C. BOEE in a rare example of responsible open public testing that should be the model for any assessment of new election technology.

Open-Source Software License

• Released the OSDV Public License, or OPL, the first open source license specifically designed to aid state and local governments in acquiring open-source technology.
• Published the OPL Rationale document, explaining the goals of the OPL and the reasoning behind each element of the OPL as meeting government needs for software licensing.

Public Speaking and Education

• Co-sponsored the Overseas Voting Foundation‘s  UOCAVA Summit, moderated the Internet Voting Debate, and sessions on Pilots, UOCAVA Technology Futures
• Published invited position papers at National Institute of Science and Technology conferences on election data standards and Overseas Voting
• Gave invited presentations at Gov 2.0 Summit, National Civic Summit, OSCON Open Source Convention,  Government Open Source Conference among others

As you can see from these highlights — the tip of the proverbial iceberg — 2010 was a busy year for us. And 2011 is shaping up to be even busier!

— EJS