Category Overview

Voting Systems — Election Security Glossary

1,792 election security terms in the Voting Systems category, with definitions sourced from NIST, CISA, EAC, and 30+ authoritative documents.

Browse all 1,792 terms in Voting Systems

Other Disaster

One of a class of emergency situations that may result in the postponement of an election.

Medium consensus1 source

Out Of Band Communication

"Communication through some means other than the primary channel under discussion.

Medium consensus1 source

Out Of Order

See DISREPAIR.

Medium consensus1 source

Out Of Precinct Voting Place

A voting place for a precinct that is located outside that precinct.

Medium consensus1 source

Out Of State Voter

A voter who is out of his state of domicile but within the territorial limits of the United States.

Medium consensus1 source

Outer Space

While this is not likely to be an issues of concern to most jurisdictions, Texas, home to the Johnson Space Center, specifically provides that astronauts may vote from outer space…

Medium consensus1 source

Oval

(opscan) An elliptical area on an optical scan ballot for the voter to mark to indicate a selection.

Medium consensus1 source

Oval Position

(opscan) The location of an on a ballot.

Medium consensus1 source

Oval Width

(opscan) Not the width of the per se, but the thickness of the oval's boundary line.

Medium consensus1 source

Overflow

The inability of a memory location or data structure, such as an array, to accommodate data larger than a certain size or value.

Medium consensus1 source

Override

With respect to voting, the selection in one or more offices of a candidate STRAIGHT-PARTY not of the party being voted for.

Medium consensus1 source

Overseas Federal Election Voter

1. = VOTER. OVERSEAS 2. Any "person in military service who, by reason of active duty or service, is absent on the date of an election from the place of residence in New Jersey…

Medium consensus1 source

By ESG Editorial Team · Drawing on NIST, the EAC, VVSG, IEEE, and 30+ authoritative sources on voting system design and certification

Voting systems are the machines, software, and supporting infrastructure through which voters mark, cast, and have their ballots counted. The category includes optical scanners, ballot-marking devices, direct-recording electronic (DRE) systems, hand-marked paper ballots, and the back-end systems that aggregate results from precincts and report them to the public.

Why this category matters for election security is rooted in the trust voters place in the systems that record their intent. A voting system that loses votes, that miscounts, or that allows manipulation without detection undermines the legitimacy of the entire election. Conversely, a system that is well designed, well tested, and well understood by election officials produces results that withstand scrutiny even when contested. The work of building and maintaining that trustworthiness is continuous.

Federal testing and certification programs establish a baseline. The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG), administered by the Election Assistance Commission, define the technical and security requirements a system must meet to be used in federal elections. State testing goes further in some cases, certifying specific configurations, requiring additional documentation, or limiting the use of particular system features. Once a system is in the field, the work of securing it continues through patch management, configuration control, and pre-election logic and accuracy testing.

The terminology in this category reflects the technical and procedural landscape that voting systems inhabit. The concepts here are not optional. Every term describes a system property that has been the subject of standards, recommendations, and in some cases federal law.

Key Concepts

Voting System

The integrated hardware and software used by voters to cast ballots and by election officials to count them.

Optical Scan

A voting system that reads marked paper ballots using optical sensors and counts the marks electronically.

Ballot Marking Device

A device that allows voters to mark their choices on an electronic interface, then prints a human-readable paper ballot.

Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail

A printed paper record produced simultaneously with an electronic vote, allowing the voter to confirm their choices before casting.

Cast Vote Record

The permanent record of a single vote as captured and stored by a voting system, in electronic and/or paper form.

Direct Recording Electronic

A voting system that records votes directly into electronic memory, with or without a contemporaneous paper record.

Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

The federal technical standards published by the EAC that define security, accuracy, and accessibility requirements for certified voting systems.

How These Terms Relate

These concepts together describe the technical core of how votes are cast and counted. A voting system is more than a single device. It is an integrated chain of hardware, software, and procedures that begins when a voter enters the booth and ends when results are reported. The terminology here covers that full chain. Optical scan, ballot-marking devices, DRE systems, and VVPAT each represent different points on a spectrum of automation and paper reliance. The choice between them is a policy decision shaped by jurisdiction, voter expectations, and the trade-offs between speed, accessibility, auditability, and security.