FW: Judy's memo to the P1583 WG
It has been my understanding, since beginning work on this Working Group,
that one of the goals was to deliver a standard to the EAC to consider in
its work of setting federal voting system standards.
At the August meeting, we discussed this issue in detail. At that time, we
asked whether the EAC would consider reviewing a draft standard that had
not yet been balloted. The answer from TGDC counsel - as I recall it - was
that it would, but that how it was read would depend on the level of
confidence in the material.
At that time, we also discussed attempting to segment some of the more
stable sections of the draft, notably usability and accessibility, so that
they could be balloted separately. This is apparently a procedurally
complex process, and the group decided to attempt to create a complete
draft that could be balloted, with the possibility of segmentation held as
Plan B.
Since then, we have had three rounds of assembly of the complete document,
and submission of comments. It remains (to me, at least) clear that the
controversial sections of the standard are no less so. Others - including
5.3 and 6.3 on Usability and Accessibility - generate few comments and
could be said to have a high degree of confidence.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the entire Working Group was
not consulted. In one of our recent phone meetings, we discussed and/or
made a decision to release a complete draft to the TGDC, along with the
comments spreadsheet.
I am not sure what you mean when you say that the TGDC is creating "stealth
policy." All committee and subcommittee meetings are open to the public and
web archived, or are made public through posting recordings of phone
meetings on the vote.nist.gov web site. Furthermore, the TGDC is an
advisory committee, which does not set policy. The work of the TGDC will
be presented to the EAC, which will then hold public hearings before
deciding whether to accept, modify, or reject the recommendations.
I understand the IEEE's reluctance to release any incomplete standard. This
is "normal operating process" for a voluntary consensus standard. But this
is an uncommon situation, with both political and time pressures.
I urged Ms. Gorman to make it possible for the TGDC to use the draft
version of at least the usability and accessibility sections in the work of
P1583. Much of text in those sections is derived from the ADA Accessibility
Guidelines (the ADAAG), and it would be a shame to have to redo the work
adapting them for the voting context. Other parts of those sections will
likely be adapted as the TDGC does its work. Some work, such as the new
concepts for evaluating contrast and audio quality, were created as part of
the work of TG3. Again, it would be a shame for this work not to be
available, given the large amount of voluntary effort put into it, and for
IEEE not to get the credit as the organization under which this work was done.
I am pleased that the IEEE Standards Association made the decision to make
portions of the draft available to the TGDC.
Whitney Quesenbery
>------ Forwarded Message
>From: Barbara Simons <simons@acm.org>
>Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:15:02 -0800
>To: <w.ash@ieee.org>, <stds-1583@IEEE.ORG>
>Cc: <s.tatiner@IEEE.ORG>, <s.vogel@IEEE.ORG>, <j.gorman@IEEE.ORG>,
><l.gargiulo@IEEE.ORG>
>Subject: Re: Judy's memo to the P1583 WG
>
>I see that Ms. Gorman held discussions with members of the TGDC and with a
>very small number of P1583 members. I would like to know why the entire
>membership of P1583 was not consulted - in particular those who have been
>raising concerns about the laughably inadequate "security standards".
>
>Given that the draft might be used to make public policy, I call upon IEEE
>to make the draft public and available free of charge, so that everyone,
>including IEEE members who are not on this committee, can read the
>recommendations and observe how dreadful they are in the area of security.
>
>It is not acceptable for the IEEE, in conjunction with the TGDC, to make
>stealth policy regarding voting machines.
>
>Regards,
>Barbara Simons
>
>On 1/25/05 13:08, "w.ash@ieee.org" <w.ash@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> > Dear 1583,
> > Please see the attached memo from Judy Gorman, Managing Director of the
> > IEEE-SA..
> >
> > Regards
> > ******************************************************
> > Bill Ash
> > Program Manager
> > IEEE Standards Activities Dept.
> > 445 Hoes Lane
> > Piscataway, NJ 08855
> > PH: 732-465-5828
> > Email: w.ash@ieee.org
> > http://standards.ieee.org/
> > *****************************************************
> >
> >
> > (See attached file: J.Gorman memo to WG.doc)
> >
> >