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Re: [election-services] RE: [election-services-comment] PUBLIC REVIEWCOMMENTS DISPOSITION
John,
Sorry for the delay--I visit to the hospital certainly messed up my
week. I agree with your recommendations.
Rich
On 08/04/2010 04:06 AM, John Borras wrote:
Although I haven’t had replies from everyone we
do have a
majority in favour of agreeing my recommendations, so I
intend to proceed to
ask TC Admin to run the ballot for Committee Specification
approval.
John
From: John Borras
[mailto:]
Sent: 29 July 2010 14:49
To: 'EML TC'
Subject: RE: [election-services-comment] PUBLIC
REVIEW COMMENTS
DISPOSITION
Attached are my Recommendations on the
disposition of the latest
comments. Can I have you agreement or alternative
suggestions
please. A positive response rather than agreement by
silence would
be appreciated please …-)
I should point out that Neal McBurnett, the
originator of these
comments, is in the process of joining OASIS and the TC so
we should look
forward to a full discussion with him about all this in the
near future.
But at this stage the priority has to be to get this version
of v6.0 agreed and
approved to serve the needs of EAC/NIST/IEEE P1622.
Delaying it further
whilst we have an in-depth analysis of auditing requirements
et al is not, IMO,
a wise move. We can use Neal’s expertise in that area to do
a thorough job
over the coming months.
John
From: John Borras
[mailto:]
Sent: 29 July 2010 13:36
To: 'EML TC'
Subject: RE: [election-services-comment] Today's
call - CANCELLED
Only having had a reply from Sven, I can only
assume the rest of
you are either on holiday, or are otherwise engaged, or are
…….
Whatever the reason it’s clear that today’s call
has to be
cancelled. And with holiday season fast approaching the
chances of
finding a new date convenient to all for a call look slim.
So let’s try and
clear these review by email, and ballot if necessary,
please. I’ll send
out shortly a revised Disposition document with my
Recommendations for your
agreement or otherwise.
John
From: John Borras
[mailto:]
Sent: 29 July 2010 08:28
To: 'EML TC'
Subject: RE: [election-services-comment] Today's
call
Importance: High
Has anyone got a teleconference number we can use
for today’s
call , if not can we all manage with Skype?
John
From: John Borras
[mailto:]
Sent: 27 July 2010 10:47
To: 'EML TC'
Subject: RE: [election-services-comment]
EMLv6-PR2 comments: Disposition
To help focus our minds on these comments, I’ve
prepared the
attached Disposition file and captured David’s comments
below and inserted my
views. If you have time before the call on Thursday please
add your
comments and re-circulate.
John
From: John Borras
[mailto:]
Sent: 26 July 2010 10:07
To: 'EML TC'
Subject: FW: [election-services-comment]
EMLv6-PR2 comments: Support for
interoperable auditing still lacking
Hi All
The comments from Neal McBurnett below are the
only ones
received during this 15 day Public Review so now we have to
decide how to
respond to them. Just to remind you of the process:
-
Comments can only be accepted against the changes
made in this
published version, ie comments made against other parts of
the Spec are not
acceptable.
-
The TC does not have to accept all comments, it
has the right to
reject them if they so wish.
-
If any substantive changes are made as a result
of the comments
then the TC has to go round the loop again of approving a
new version as a
Committee Draft and then publishing it for a new 15 day
Public Review.
This loop is repeated until all comments have been
satisfactorily incorporated
or dismissed.
I don’t really want to hide
behind procedures to avoid any of them because they could be
seen to be new
changes rather than variations on the same theme. David’s
response
below suggest some/most of these are local profile issues
rather than
mainstream EML ones and that may be a correct
interpretation. However
let’s not forget that we have accepted that there is a need
for major upgrade
to include audit requirements and we would do that for the
next release, so an
answer at this stage could be to defer some/all of these
comments until
then. Also note that any requests for example programs and
interop tests
are outside of the scope of v6.0 .
I suggest therefore we go
ahead with our TC call on Thursday to review these comments
and decide how we
wish to respond to each of them. Can someone provide a
conference call
number please? Just to remind you we have set the call for
14.30
CET/13.30 UK/8.30 EST (sorry Joe!).
John
From: David RR
Webber
(XML) [mailto:]
Sent: 25 July 2010 04:46
To: Neal McBurnett
Cc:
Subject: RE: [election-services-comment]
EMLv6-PR2 comments: Support for
interoperable auditing still lacking
Neal,
EML 530 is completely customizable with
type code values
of your own choosing. I suspect what you desire can be
provided
as "profiles" of prescribed code types.
This would follow the same notes you make
below for the 520.
Since these are all external to the schema - this would
be covered by a
USA localization guidelines for implementers.
Per comment 1) - the use you are suggesting
is also such a
guideline - I'm not sure the XML element needs to be
renamed as such.
Per comment 2) - alternate name for
candidates - I believe this is
already there - the name element type can be set to
"Alternate" - in
xNL type.
Similarly comments 3 thru 5
also constitutes localization guidelines. I believe this
is
what we are seeing the P1622 will move to publish in
coordination with NIST and
OASIS.
I would suggest we can simply begin
drafting an initial "how
to" document along those lines.
Thanks,
DW
-------- Original Message
--------
Subject: [election-services-comment] EMLv6-PR2 comments:
Support for
interoperable auditing still lacking
From: Neal McBurnett <>
Date: Sat, July 24, 2010 10:34 pm
To:
Thank you for your attention to my comments on
the first public
draft of EMLv6:
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/election-services-comment/200912/msg00002.html
Here are some followup comments. I've used
a narrative style
here to provide background and context, but have
also listed along the way a
number of specific comments which I'd like to see
addressed.
The following summary of the
January election-services WG meeting responds to
each comment submitted for the
public review of the first public draft of EMLv6:
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/election-services/201001/msg00018.html
There is one row which combines
many of my main previous comments together, with
this TC disposition:
> Defer to next release in the main, but could do
some small changes
> now. Review off line some 530 changes may be
possible
In the EML PR2 draft, I don't see any
changes in 530. I see
one helpful change in 510: the addition of a
"ReportType" string
field which can be used to record the type of
ballots included in a given audit
unit - e.g. to differentiate between "absentee",
"in-precinct", "early vote", "mixed", etc.
Thank you!
The "LocalName" field was also added to the
core for
contests, presumably in response to my request for
both standard names and
local names. I have two follow-on comments:
Comment 1) I suggest renaming LocalName to
"AlternateName", since the "ContestName" would
normally
serve as the "local" name, to be used in the actual
ballot materials
and traditional reports.
Comment 2) There also needs to be an
AlternateName for candidates,
as noted at the NIST meeting on standard data
formats.
To motivate the rest of my comments, I cite
the American
Statistical Association statement endorsing Risk
Limiting Audits:
http://www.amstat.org/outreach/pdfs/Risk-Limiting_Endorsement.pdf
I think it is clear that risk-limiting
post-election vote
tabulation audits are one of the best ways to
improve confidence in election
results via independently gathered hand-count
evidence. But the timelines
to do post-election audits are stringent and the
data processing needs are
challenging. The data needs to be gathered and
aggregated from counties using
different election management systems. Audit units
need to be selected
and hand counted, and results need to be compared
and analyzed, potentially
leading to more hand counts.
Unless the exact format for these reports is
specified, including
field names etc, with enough details present
for interoperability testing
and use by automated tools, EML will not meet the
test of being an
"interoperable" standard, as described at the NIST
meeting. It
would only be suitable as a basis for "integration",
thus losing much
of its potential.
Two initial drivers for EML were identified
at the NIST data
format standard meeting, and one was auditing.
So I still think users of EMLv6 would
benefit greatly from a few
new standard elements to support post election
tabulation audits.
Comment 3) Standardize the EML 510 data elements
needed for auditing
Inside <Contest><ReportingUnitVotes>
a) Type of ballots ("absentee", "in-precinct",
"early vote", "mixed", etc) (using the new
ReportType
element)
b) Number of ballots
c) Number of ballots on which this contest appeared
Inside <Contest><TotalVotes>
a) Total number of ballots
b) Total number of ballots on which this contest
appeared
c) Number of distinct ReportingUnits reported here
Comment 4) Provide a simple official example
program (in XSLT or some
other
language) to aggregate EML 510 from multiple
jurisdictions into a
single comprehensive EML 510 file, suitable for
re-tabulating the
preliminary results and selecting batches to be
audited. Or at
least
get an existance proof that the fields are
standardized well enough
that such a program can be written - I'll do it if
necessary.
Sponsor an interop test among EML implementors
using that program
to test compatibility.
Comment 5) Make post tabulation
audit support a specific goal of EML in
Section 3.2.6 of the EML spec ("The Auditing
System"), and add
schemas 510 and 520 as inputs to the audit
cross-referencing process
in figure 2H. Reference "Principles and Best
Practices for
Post-Election Audits" http://electionaudits.org/principles/
Comment 6) Provide new 5xx
"Audit Results" schema for reporting the results of
an audit, including selections, where discrepancies
were found, and
perhaps Or perhaps add a few new standard elements
that could make
the
510 report suitable as an Audit Results.
This Audit Results schema could
be delayed until the next version of EML, when we
have more experience in what
is needed. But I think the other comments are
necessary for the most
demanding and time-sensitive phase of the audit, and
they are relatively easy
to address. They would allow EML to become an
interoperable standard that
would lower costs for auditing and thus help drive
its adoption.
Thank you again for your work on this very
important standard!
--
Neal McBurnett
http://neal.mcburnett.org/
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