OASIS Technical Committee Call for Participation: Election and Voter Services

Date:      Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:57:22 -0500
From:      Karl Best <karl.best@oasis-open.org>
To:        tc-announce@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject:   OASIS TC call for participation: Election and Voter Services

A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The Election and Voter Services Committee has been proposed by Gregg McGilvray, election.com (chair); Oliver Bell, Microsoft; and Ed McLaughlin, Accenture.

The request for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC process, and is appended to this email.

To become a member of this new TC you must 1) be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an Individual member of OASIS, 2) notify the committee chair, Gregg McGilvray (gregg@election.com), of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting, and 3) participate in the first meeting on 15 May, 2001. You should also subscribe to the TC's discussion list. (For the procedure for joining after the first meeting see the TC process at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml).

The mail list election-services@lists.oasis-open.org is for committee discussions. TC members as well as any other interested OASIS members should subscribe to the list. Do this by sending a message to election-services-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as the body of the message. (Note that subscribing to the mail list does not make you a member of the TC; to become a member you must contact the TC chair as described in the preceeding paragraph.)

</karl>
Karl F. Best
OASIS - Director, Technical Operations
978.667.5115 x206
karl.best@oasis-open.org http://www.oasis-open.org

Submission To OASIS for the Creation of a Technical Committee

Committee Name: Election and Voter Services Committee

Purpose: To develop a standard for the structured interchange of data among hardware, software, and service providers who engage in any aspect of providing election or voter services to public or private organizations. The services performed for such elections include but are not limited to voter role/membership maintenance (new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, etc.), citizen/membership credentialing, redistricting, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election calendaring, logistics management (polling place management), election notification, ballot delivery and tabulation, election results reporting and demographics.

Implementation: The standard under development by election.com, Inc. will be made available for review and revision and can be expanded upon as necessary. A phased approach will be used to implement the standard due to the number of aspects being considered by the standard.

Schedule and Deliverables:

29 March 2001: Call for Participation sent out
15 May 2001: Inaugural Meeting of the Committee
3 months after initial meeting : Initial Phase 1 Requirements Document delivered
6 months after initial meeting: Initial Phase 1 Draft Document delivered
9 months after initial meeting : Initial Phase 1 Final Document delivered

Language: The specification will be prepared in English.

Meeting Schedule:

15 May 2001: First meeting to be conducted in person at the headquarters of election.com, Inc. in Garden City, New York with a dial-in teleconference number provided by election.com.

Subsequent face-to-face meetings will occur every other month with bi-weekly teleconference calls.

Initial Participants:

Gregg McGilvray (Chair), election.com and Individual member of OASIS, gregg@election.com
Oliver Bell, Microsoft Corp, oliverb@microsoft.com
Ed McLaughlin, Accenture, edward.n.mclaughlan@accenture.com

Committee Sponsors: Election.com will sponsor all on site and teleconference meetings.

Election Markup Language (EML) Specification

Introduction

A schema will be proposed to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for the purpose of setting an information and data interchange standard for the Election Services Industry. Election Services is defined to mean any components needed to conduct a private or public election. Private elections are conducted for publicly traded corporations, trade associations, labor unions, pension funds, credit unions, not-for-profit organizations, etc. Public elections are conducted domestically and internationally for municipalities, governments, jurisdictions, special districts and any other group wishing to solicit public opinion. The services performed for all such elections include but are not limited to voter role/membership maintenance (new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, etc.), citizen/membership credentialing, redistricting, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election calendaring, logistics management (polling place management), election notification, ballot delivery and tabulation, election results reporting and demographics.

The Need

This standard will facilitate interoperability among various suppliers of election hardware, software, and services. It is recognized that there are many players in the field employing different levels of automation. Those functional areas not automated can be more easily automated if a common way of doing business existed. The functional areas that are automated operate on many different platforms employing different architectures, some of which have never done data interchange, especially with unlike environments. The need to have a consistent, auditable, automated election system has been evidenced in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election and this need is also pervasive worldwide, especially in developing democracies. New global election processes are being developed, and voting procedures and voting cultures must be incorporated into these processes. There must be a uniform way to allow existing systems to interact with other systems as these new processes evolve and are adopted.

The Solution

The solution is to create a standard based on XML that will provide all the intercommunication needs for this industry. XML is an excellent choice for several reasons. XML is sponsored by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international standards body supported by many of the major hardware and software vendors. XML is an emerging standard based on a mature standard, SGML. SGML has given rise to HTML, a widely used and understood Internet technology. XML is text based, which means that a vast number of devices and software components can use it. XML encourages groups and industries to form common interchange standards using easy-to- understand tools. Lastly XML is flexible and allows for modifications to be proposed and made during the course of time. This will allow the industry to evolve separately from the technology. Election needs will drive the evolutionary process and not be a result of the technology employed.

The Implementation

Suitable partners will be found to propose and form an OASIS Technical committee. OASIS is a vendor independent, open standards body and a proponent of vertical industry groups for the purpose of interoperability. This committee will be called the Election and Voter Service Committee. The purpose will be to propose and develop the Election Markup Language (EML) as a standard. EML will include specifications for all aspects of election and voter services and will be designed to be extensible. The standard will be broken down into functional sub-standards and phased into EML over time. The phases will consist of:

Phase 1

Authentication
Authorization and Profile Identification
Ballot Delivery
Vote Delivery and Confirmation

Phase 2

Results Reporting
New Member/Voter Application
Membership/Voter Role Maintenance
Absentee/Expatriate Request for Ballots
Election Notification

Phase 3

Election Calendaring
Redistricting
TBD

There should also be dialogue with other Technical Committees such as the Security Services Committee to form Joint Committees for the purpose of interoperability and reuse of existing standards.

The Standard

Once the committee is formed election.com will submit the standard that it has been developing and solicit input from other partners and vendors.

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See: "Election Markup Language (EML)."

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The request for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC process, and is appended to this email. To become a member of this new TC you must 1) be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an Individual member of OASIS, 2) notify the committee chair, Gregg McGilvray (gregg@election.com), of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting, and 3) participate in the first meeting on 15 May, 2001. You should also subscribe to the TC's discussion list. (For the procedure for joining after the first meeting see the TC process at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml). The mail list election-services@lists.oasis-open.org is for committee discussions. TC members as well as any other interested OASIS members should subscribe to the list. Do this by sending a message to election-services-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as the body of the message. (Note that subscribing to the mail list does not make you a member of the TC; to become a member you must contact the TC chair as described in the preceeding paragraph.) </karl> Karl F. Best OASIS - Director, Technical Operations 978.667.5115 x206 karl.best@oasis-open.org http://www.oasis-open.org Submission To OASIS for the Creation of a Technical Committee Committee Name: Election and Voter Services Committee Purpose: To develop a standard for the structured interchange of data among hardware, software, and service providers who engage in any aspect of providing election or voter services to public or private organizations. The services performed for such elections include but are not limited to voter role/membership maintenance (new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, etc.), citizen/membership credentialing, redistricting, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election calendaring, logistics management (polling place management), election notification, ballot delivery and tabulation, election results reporting and demographics. Implementation: The standard under development by election.com, Inc. will be made available for review and revision and can be expanded upon as necessary. A phased approach will be used to implement the standard due to the number of aspects being considered by the standard. Schedule and Deliverables: 29 March 2001: Call for Participation sent out 15 May 2001: Inaugural Meeting of the Committee 3 months after initial meeting : Initial Phase 1 Requirements Document delivered 6 months after initial meeting: Initial Phase 1 Draft Document delivered 9 months after initial meeting : Initial Phase 1 Final Document delivered Language: The specification will be prepared in English. Meeting Schedule: 15 May 2001: First meeting to be conducted in person at the headquarters of election.com, Inc. in Garden City, New York with a dial-in teleconference number provided by election.com. Subsequent face-to-face meetings will occur every other month with bi-weekly teleconference calls. Initial Participants: Gregg McGilvray (Chair), election.com and Individual member of OASIS, gregg@election.com Oliver Bell, Microsoft Corp, oliverb@microsoft.com Ed McLaughlin, Accenture, edward.n.mclaughlan@accenture.com Committee Sponsors: Election.com will sponsor all on site and teleconference meetings. Election Markup Language (EML) Specification Introduction A schema will be proposed to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for the purpose of setting an information and data interchange standard for the Election Services Industry. Election Services is defined to mean any components needed to conduct a private or public election. Private elections are conducted for publicly traded corporations, trade associations, labor unions, pension funds, credit unions, not-for-profit organizations, etc. Public elections are conducted domestically and internationally for municipalities, governments, jurisdictions, special districts and any other group wishing to solicit public opinion. The services performed for all such elections include but are not limited to voter role/membership maintenance (new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, etc.), citizen/membership credentialing, redistricting, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election calendaring, logistics management (polling place management), election notification, ballot delivery and tabulation, election results reporting and demographics. The Need This standard will facilitate interoperability among various suppliers of election hardware, software, and services. It is recognized that there are many players in the field employing different levels of automation. Those functional areas not automated can be more easily automated if a common way of doing business existed. The functional areas that are automated operate on many different platforms employing different architectures, some of which have never done data interchange, especially with unlike environments. The need to have a consistent, auditable, automated election system has been evidenced in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election and this need is also pervasive worldwide, especially in developing democracies. New global election processes are being developed, and voting procedures and voting cultures must be incorporated into these processes. There must be a uniform way to allow existing systems to interact with other systems as these new processes evolve and are adopted. The Solution The solution is to create a standard based on XML that will provide all the intercommunication needs for this industry. XML is an excellent choice for several reasons. XML is sponsored by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international standards body supported by many of the major hardware and software vendors. XML is an emerging standard based on a mature standard, SGML. SGML has given rise to HTML, a widely used and understood Internet technology. XML is text based, which means that a vast number of devices and software components can use it. XML encourages groups and industries to form common interchange standards using easy-to- understand tools. Lastly XML is flexible and allows for modifications to be proposed and made during the course of time. This will allow the industry to evolve separately from the technology. Election needs will drive the evolutionary process and not be a result of the technology employed. The Implementation Suitable partners will be found to propose and form an OASIS Technical committee. OASIS is a vendor independent, open standards body and a proponent of vertical industry groups for the purpose of interoperability. This committee will be called the Election and Voter Service Committee. The purpose will be to propose and develop the Election Markup Language (EML) as a standard. EML will include specifications for all aspects of election and voter services and will be designed to be extensible. The standard will be broken down into functional sub-standards and phased into EML over time. The phases will consist of: Phase 1 Authentication Authorization and Profile Identification Ballot Delivery Vote Delivery and Confirmation Phase 2 Results Reporting New Member/Voter Application Membership/Voter Role Maintenance Absentee/Expatriate Request for Ballots Election Notification Phase 3 Election Calendaring Redistricting TBD There should also be dialogue with other Technical Committees such as the Security Services Committee to form Joint Committees for the purpose of interoperability and reuse of existing standards. The Standard Once the committee is formed election.com will submit the standard that it has been developing and solicit input from other partners and vendors. Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See: "Election Markup Language (EML)."