GAO: D’oh! Our testing labs for voting systems pretty much stink

Less than two months before the general election, the Government Accountability Office has released a report on the failures of the “accredited laboratories” that test voting systems. After the debacles that were the 2000 and 2004 elections, when voting systems failed and votes weren’t counted, Congress created the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which called for the work of two organizations to monitor and accredit laboratories that test voting systems. But about the voting labs’ “accreditation”? Well, it’s about as official as a degree program at the two-year School of Rock.

As part of HAVA, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were created to monitor and accredit the laboratories that test America’s numerous voting systems. But those bureaucratic entities in place to ensure credibility aren’t exactly doing their jobs.

According to the GAO’s findings, important elements are still missing from both [the EAC and NIST] programs, such as:

1. EAC has not developed program management practices that are fully consistent with what NIST has found to be hallmarks of an effective accreditation program, nor has the agency adequately specified how evaluations are to be performed and documented.

2. There are no explicit qualifications or training requirements for assessors.

3. NIST’s documentation of assessments was not sufficient to determine how the checklists were applied and how decisions were reached.

No training? No documentation? No follow through? Yes, the organizations responsible for accrediting the labs are themselves full of shortcomings. Sounds like they could make a run for VP. Read the entire report here (pdf). But be warned: It’s a puzzle of mumbo jumbo that requires its own audit.