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

Voter In A Remote Area

Any "registered voter who resides ten miles or more from the voter's designated polling place by the most direct route for public travel." 2 Hawaii.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Inactivity Time

The "amount of time from when the system completes its response until there is detectible voter activity.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Inclusion Index

A "BENCHMARK used in the VPP. A measure of voting accuracy and variance, based on the mean accuracy per voter and the associated standard deviation.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Registration Agency

An office that performs voter registration activities.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Registration Commission

In Illinois, Iowa and Pennsylvania, a body that determines the qualifications of applicants for registration.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Slip

A "slip of paper with a number printed or stamped on it that an election judge gives the voter who in turn deposits it in an envelope or on a spindle on the voting machine." Wyo.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Verification

The act by a voter of satisfying herself that her vote has been correctly captured and counted.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter With Disabilities

A "voter who has a permanent or temporary physical disability, as set forth in 42 U.S.C.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Editable Ballot Device

A "VOTE-CAPTURE that gathers votes via an and DEVICE ELECTRONIC VOTER INTERFACE allows the voter to alter previously made votes without spoiling the ballot." VVSG.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Handled

A type of in which the voter may touch the paper ballot after it has been printed, as VVPAT opposed to systems, in which the ballot is protected behind a transparent shield.

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Verifiable And Auditable Paper Trail

A "paper record of the voter's choices, viewable prior to casting the ballot, which may be the paper ballot itself; the paper trail shall be used by the state or its contractor to…

Medium consensus1 source

Voter Verifiable Paper Record

A "paper produced by a that supports (e.g., CVR VOTE-CAPTURE DEVICE VOTER VERIFICATION and EBM).

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.