TTV File Formats

From Trust The Vote

Background

I talk in terms of 'file formats' even though we've not yet decided that these things are files or stored in a database. For the moment, think of these as files.

In our various write ups, I've been using a notation called YAML. It can be trivially mapped to XML (which is probably what we'd be using) but it's easier to write and read for humans.

All files have a 64bit "guid" which is generated by whatever application is writing the file. This is used to allow for backtracking and auditing and reconstructing results.

So far, we have proposed two primary types, which are stored inside files.

• audit-header This record type is the first thing in any file created within any of the devices and applications of TTV. It includes simple demographic information, as well as pointers back (provenance) to other files that were processed to create the present one.

• ballot This record type is the meat of the action. It is used to represent ballot designs, voted ballots, print layouts for ballots, and the various forms of ballot information that occur in the lifecycle of the system.