Paper Ballot Verification and Accessibility

On May 27, 2025, the EAC approved a policy supporting voting systems that are auditable and software-independent, according to its May 28, 2025 announcement on paper records. The policy recommends that election offices use systems with a paper record of every vote, such as paper ballots. At the time of the announcement, the EAC said this already applied to systems in more than 98% of jurisdictions. Nothing in the policy was intended to contradict Section 301 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) or other legally required accessibility provisions.

Reviewing selections before casting

NIST's January 31, 2025 report on summary-ballot legibility identifies voters' ability to review and verify their selections before casting a ballot as an important step in voting. The research concerns summary ballots printed by ballot marking devices. It examines the ballot's visual presentation to identify typographic elements that might make the printed record easier to read.

Readable records and accessibility

Optical character recognition applications, or OCR applications, commonly found on mobile phones are another subject of the report. It examines their ability to voice, or read aloud, printed summary ballots, including the feasibility of accurate reading for blind or low-vision voters. The research also asks whether design elements that help visual reading are related to those that help OCR-assisted reading.

Checking tabulator totals against paper

Following Chapters 320–321 of Maryland's 2025 Acts, local election boards must perform a risk-limiting audit after each primary and general election, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections' ballot audit plan. The requirement appears in §11-309 of the Election Law Article, and COMAR 33.08.05.09 also regulates post-election audits.

The audit checks a random sample of voter-verifiable paper ballots. Statistical methods determine the number of ballots to review based on the margin in a contest, with the purpose of confirming tabulator-reported totals to a high degree of certainty. Election workers sworn to impartiality conduct the manual reviews.

The public may observe the audit initiation ceremony and the manual review teams' work. The board says it will publish the randomized ballot selections and comparisons of tabulated tallies with manually counted tallies on its audit-plan page.

Standards and existing systems

Before the Help America Vote Act of 2002, voting systems were assessed and qualified by the National Association of State Election Directors. Those systems were tested against the Federal Election Commission's 1990 and 2002 voting system standards.

HAVA established the EAC as an independent commission with responsibilities for secure, accurate and accessible elections. Its work includes developing guidance to meet HAVA requirements, adopting voluntary voting system guidelines and serving as a national clearinghouse for election administration information. The EAC also accredits testing laboratories, certifies voting systems and administers HAVA funds.

The EAC's guidelines page, dated May 13, 2026, describes the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines as specifications for testing voting systems, including functionality, accessibility and security capabilities. It says the EAC accepted applications for testing against versions 1.0 and 1.1 until November 15, 2023. Applications for newly certified systems must use VVSG 2.0, with an exception for limited maintenance modifications to existing systems certified under those earlier versions.

The EAC's migration guidance, dated May 28, 2026, says older systems are not decertified by migration and jurisdictions are not required to replace or update them with VVSG 2.0-certified versions. Continued procurement and use remain subject to state or local law. Permitted maintenance covers security patches, bug fixes, end-of-life component updates and functionality required by jurisdictional rule changes. The guidance also acknowledges the time needed to develop, certify and field systems when state and local election offices face constrained funding.