Software independence
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The term "software independence" (SI) was coined by Dr. Ron Rivest and NIST researcher John Wack. A software independent voting machine is one whose tabulation record does not rely solely on software. The goal of an SI system is to definitively determine whether all votes were recorded legitimately or in error.
The technical definition of SI is:
SI has been redefined as a global property for a tabulation of votes rather than of each individual vote, aiming to detect rather than prevent error and fraud through human processes.
TGDC Resolution
The Election Assistance Commission's Technical Guidelines Development Committee adopted an SI resolution for the next iteration of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG):
Example systems
Examples of software-independent voting systems are optical scan voting systems and direct recording electronic voting computers (DRE) with a voter verified paper audit trail.