Thread by @conways_law

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US citizens, please deliver the message to your representatives in Congress.

1/11

System Design as a deliberate practice has become mandatory in the construction of every modern information system. It is a recognized field of practice, and a group of expert practitioners has grown up over the past few decades.

2/11

Our Constitution mandates specific information systems. The Census, for example, is designed and managed by its own Federal organization that puts massive design effort into getting it right.

3/11

The vote, the keystone of our democracy, is a very different story. In our laws the vote is not even seen as an information system that needs a design. It is seen as a set of locally-executed practices.

4/11

Congressional actions to support the proper execution of the Constitutional voting mandate are limited to adding isolated pieces. Even with piecemeal technological insertions, our voting apparatus is a fragile 19th-century assembly of independently-designed parts.

5/11

The coming November election is under threat because the voting system is so fragile. There are growing indications that (to use a term of art from the field) it is likely to crash.

6/11

System Design is not about technology; it’s about characterizing a system so that its performance conforms to an established requirement statement. Such a requirement will include a definition of success and failure, and specifications of acceptable levels of failure.

7/11

Thus, Quality Management as an established practice is a necessary part of System Design.

Modern Quality Management practices must be built into the voting system.

8/11

There are many ways a complicated system can break. Piecemeal fixes, particularly in the presence of hostile actors, are certain to fail. The issue of system fragility is much deeper than the set of problems that fall under the label “security”.

9/11

What America needs now is a robust and secure voting information system design at the Federal level, suitable for implementation by the States, that satisfies the Constitutional mandate. The urgency is immense and the timeline is almost impossible.

10/11

Now, Congress needs to publicly invite expert input toward the preparation of a Voting System Requirements document, a full draft of which it will publish by September. Our National Security requires this.

11/11