RE: electionlineWeekly — March 22, 2018

1 view

Skip to first unread message

jos...@gmail.com

unread,

Mar 27, 2018, 4:03:54 PM3/27/18

to Sonya Reynolds, osdi-go...@googlegroups.com

First I’ve seen it. It looks to be a different domain, but with some potential overlap. Looks like voterfile stuff, and not as broad as OSDI (donations, events, petitions, etc)

It’s also run through NIST, which is government driven, and likely non-partisan.

That said, we should consider liaising a bit and make them aware of our work.

From: Sonya Reynolds <sonyabr...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2018 3:41 PM
To: Josh Cohen <jos...@gmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: electionlineWeekly — March 22, 2018

http://www.electionline.org/index.php/electionline-weekly

Did you see this?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: electionline <mmor...@electionline.org>
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 1:58 PM
Subject: electionlineWeekly — March 22, 2018
To: Sonya <sonyabr...@gmail.com>

March 22, 2018

Speaking a common language
How common data format helps elections officials

By Katy Owens Hubler
Democracy Research, LLC

If you’ve been to national election conferences in the last several years you’ve likely heard the term “common data format” or CDF. What is a common data format and why is it important for elections?

What is a common data format?
In this day and age, data is king (or queen). As with everything else, elections administration has become more data heavy and more device heavy.

It wasn’t always this way. Think back to the analog age of giant cumbersome lever voting machines when there was just one “voting machine.” It was mechanical, not electronic, and wasn’t attached to any other machines that helped it serve its purpose. It allowed electors to cast their vote, and it tabulated the votes without the need to “talk” to anything else.

Now, election systems are much more than a big bulky lever machine. There is a web of different software and hardware systems that need to interact with each other in some way. Data is at the core of all of these systems, from the databases that are used to maintain voter lists, to electronic poll books used to check voters in, to devices used to tabulated votes, to election night reporting systems that display results. Read more…