The Pentagon

As recently reported on Etopia Media Voting News in "Congress passes the DOD Internet voting buck to the Election Assistance Commission; no comment yet from EAC," the "critical task" for developing reliable, useable, and legal remote Internet voting systems is now the creation of Remote Internet Voting System Standards by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), using technical assistance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and, possibly, money from the Department of Defense (DoD).

Polli Brunelli at DoD's Federal Voter Assistance Program (FVAP), which has the responsibility of assisting military and overseas civilian U.S. citizens with their voting, replied today to some questions previously submitted. Here is what she said:

"Congress has directed the Department to carry out a remote internet voting project with assistance from the Election Assistance Commission.

"As the Department has already done a project in 2000, and initiated a project in 2004, we will share information and lessons learned from those projects with the Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology as they work toward establishing standards.

"The Department will continue to maintain a working relationship with the Commission as part of its advisory board.

"Once the EAC begins work on the standards, the Department will cooperate by providing information and guidance as requested and looks forward to ultimately providing an alternative to the by-mail absentee voting process for citizens covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act."