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Official site of the San Francisco Open Source Voting System Technical Advisory Committee (OSVTAC)


Meeting Minutes: April 11, 2019 (approved May 14, 2019)

Elections Commission
City and County of San Francisco
William Walker, Secretary
Open Source Voting System Technical Advisory Committee
Christopher Jerdonek, Chair
Roan Kattouw, Vice Chair
Carl Hage
Brandon Philips
Tony Wasserman
MEETING MINUTES
Open Source Voting System Technical Advisory Committee (OSVTAC)
of the San Francisco Elections Commission
Thursday, April 11, 2019
6:00 p.m.
City Hall, Room 421
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, California 94102

Order of Business

1. Call to Order & Roll Call

Chair Jerdonek called the meeting to order at 6:10 p.m. Present: Members Hage, Jerdonek, Kattouw. Excused absence: Member Wasserman. Unexcused absense: Member Philips. Also present: Secretary Walker.

2. General Public Comment

None.

3. Open Source Voting Project Plan (6:11 p.m.)

Chair Jerdonek:

Public comment: None.

4. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings (6:24 p.m.)

Public comment: None.

Member Kattouw moved (Member Hage seconded) to approve the minutes of the February 14, 2019 OSVTAC meeting. Secretary Walker took a roll call vote. - AYES: 3; NOES 0; ABSENT: 2. Motion carries unanimously.

Chair Jerdonek tabled consideration of the March 14, 2019 OSVTAC Minutes.

5. Administration (6:26 p.m.)

Chair Jerdonek agreed to report on behalf of the OSVTAC at the next Regular Elections Commission meeting on Wednesday, April 17.

Member Kattouw volunteered to prepare OSVTAC’s next tri-annual report to the Elections Commission.

Chair Jerdonek reported that several OSVTAC members’ terms expire after the May 2019 meeting and so will need to be reappointed.

Public comment: None.

6. Member Reports (6:33 p.m.)

Member Hage provided a report of activities since the previous meeting.

Member Kattouw reported that the matching funds proposal from the Assemblymember Santiago has been published and assigned number AB 1784. He briefly described the requirements as outlined in the bill that would need to be achieved before receiving either a 3-to-1 match if voting system is developed prior to the year 2022; a 2-to-1 funds match if the system is up and running by year 2024, or a regular 1-to-1 match should the system be implemented by the year 2026.

Member Hage discussed issues related to the chain of custody that is developed during the tabulation of voting results.

Public comment: None.

7. Digital Signatures (6:43 p.m.)

Members discussed a number of issues related to voting system component development, including digital signatures, SHASUM hash files, using Perl and Python (programming languages), and signature verification software solutions.

Also discussed were digital certificates, the different state and federal mechanisms to certify open source voting system components, methods to systemize voting system languages, and ways to encrypt the voting system. Whether or not to develop a glossary for the requirements documents was also considered

Public comment: None.

8. Voting System Component Development (7:15 p.m.)

A number of suggestions were made to add to the running list of features to be included in the Open Source Voting System, including:

Public comment: None.

9. Public Contributions to OSVTAC Projects

The committee members brainstormed processes that could be used to review and accept pull requests from members of the public within the constraints of the Sunshine Ordinance.

Public comment: None.

10. Topics for future discussion

Chair Jerdonek mentioned that the topic of data licensing had come up in the past as a possible topic.

Public comment: None.

Adjourned at 8:30 p.m.