August 2007 Press Releases

Secretary of State to Serve on National Panel - August 3, 2007
Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz to serve on national panel to discuss state voter registration databases.

PRESS ADVISORY

August 3, 2007

Contact:  Ginny Colbert (802) 828-2148

Secretary of State Deb Markowitz to Serve on National Panel to Discuss State Voter Registration Databases

Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz will be in the nation’s capital on Monday, August 6, 2007, to speak to the National Academies’ committee on Interstate Interoperability of State Voter Registration Databases.  Markowitz, who is the immediate past president of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), will describe Vermont’s successful efforts to create a flexible and reliable statewide voter checklist and she will discuss the implementation challenges faced by Vermont and by other states.

Monday’s event is the first in a series of workshops by the National Academies.  The goal is to prepare an interim report addressing challenges in implementing and maintaining state voter registration databases and providing advice to the states on how to evolve and maintain these databases in order to share information with other states securely and accurately in fulfillment of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.  The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. 

More information about this project is available on their website at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cstb/project_interstatevoter_workshop1.html

The workshop will commence at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, August 6, at the National Academies Keck Center, 500 Fifth Street NW, Room 100, in Washington, D.C.

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PRESS RELEASE

August 6, 2007

Contact:  Ginny Colbert (802) 828-2148

Secretary of State Deb Markowitz Serves on National Panel to Discuss State Voter Registration Databases

Washington, D.C.  Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz was in the nation’s capital today to speak to the National Academies’ committee on the Future of State Voter Registration Databases.  Markowitz, who is the immediate past president of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), was asked to speak about Vermont’s experience in building a statewide registration database using state employees, rather than an outside contractor.

Markowitz described Vermont’s successful efforts to create a flexible and reliable statewide voter checklist.  She said “It was not easy for most states to meet the January 2006 deadline of the Help America Vote Act.”  Markowitz explained, “There was little time to do proper planning and bidding for contracts since the federal funding was provided to the states only 18 months prior to the completion deadline.  In addition, the Elections Assistance Commission didn’t issue its federal technical guidelines until July 2005 – well after the time that states needed to have their systems built so that they could be adequately tested prior to becoming live on January 1^st of 2006.” 

Markowitz told the committee that she is proud of what Vermont has accomplished.  She said, “Many Vermont communities do not have broad-band connections, and some clerks in our smaller towns managed their checklists with pen and paper rather than on a computer.  Despite these challenges, with the help of our municipal clerks, we were able to put in place a system that offers flexibility to our communities, and is reliable and secure.” 

According to Markowitz, Vermont decided to build the state’s voter registration database in-house because it was more cost-effective and permitted the elections division and the municipal clerks to have more control over the final product.  Markowitz said “In Vermont we spent a fraction of what other states spent on a product that makes it easier to manage our registration lists, allows us to identify and clear up duplicate registrations, and permits our clerks to export the data to other computer applications.”

Monday’s event was the first in a series of workshops by the National Academies.  The goal of the committee is to prepare an interim report addressing challenges in implementing and maintaining state voter registration databases, and providing advice to the states on how to evolve and maintain these databases in order to share information with other states securely and accurately in fulfillment of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.  The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. 

More information about this project is available on the National Academies’ website at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cstb/project_interstatevoter_workshop1.html

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