EAC certifies Hart InterCivic’s Verity Vanguard as first VVSG 2.0 voting system

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission on [date] certified Hart InterCivic’s Verity Vanguard 1.0 as the first voting system to meet the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) 2.0, panelists and EAC officials said during a public meeting announcing the milestone.

Chairman Donald Palmer opened the session by calling the certification a “major step forward in the ongoing effort to modernize and secure the nation’s voting infrastructure,” and said VVSG 2.0 raises expectations for accuracy, cybersecurity, accessibility and audibility. "The EAC is pleased to announce the certification of the first voting system to the voluntary voting system guidelines 2.0," he said.

Why it matters

VVSG 2.0 updates the national testing standard for voting equipment to prioritize modern security practices, software independence and improved auditability, the EAC said. Jonathan Lee, the EAC’s project manager for the certification, told commissioners that VVSG 2.0 shifts many requirements from device-specific rules to system-wide principles — a change that gives manufacturers more flexibility but also creates interpretation questions that the EAC resolves through Requests for Interpretation (RFIs).

How it was tested

SLI Compliance, the accredited voting system test laboratory (VSTL) that conducted the Vanguard evaluation, said it prepared its VVSG 2.0 scope over roughly a year and that the Vanguard test campaign required substantial effort. Michael Santos, SLI’s VSTL director, said SLI spent in excess of 3,000 hours preparing its accreditation to include VVSG 2.0 and more than 6,000 hours on the Vanguard 1.0 test campaign, which took roughly 12 months in the lab. "A VSTL examines security testing, source code review, documentation, functionality and accessibility testing, trusted builds and manufacturer's internal processes," Santos said, describing the lab’s end-to-end responsibilities.

Manufacturer view and innovations

Jim Caner, chief technology officer at Hart InterCivic, said his company engaged early with the VVSG 2.0 development and submitted more than 200 feedback comments during drafting. Caner described Vanguard as a system designed to meet the spirit of the new standard and to add practical innovations such as a modular polling-place imprint capability, advanced accessibility features, and a hardware-augmented secure boot process. He also said Vanguard aligns with executive order 14248’s emphasis on voter-verifiable ballots and prohibitions on QR/barcodes that encode voter selections.

Panel discussion: penetration testing, process and adoption

Commissioners pressed panelists on process details and next steps. Jonathan Lee described the EAC’s layered document review, which cross-references test reports, specifications and traceability matrices and relies on iterative feedback with labs and manufacturers. Lee and Santos highlighted that the program manual now requires a limited penetration test as part of the pre-application readiness review: a discovery phase followed by targeted exploit testing to identify vulnerabilities that conformance tests might not reveal.

Panelists urged early engagement to speed certification. Santos recommended manufacturers work with a VSTL and the EAC before submitting a full system, pointing to unused provisions in the life-cycle policy that allow component certification as a stepping stone. Caner said states can accelerate adoption by creating demand and by understanding that the transition to VVSG 2.0 should not be a ‘radical’ reinvention of election administration.

State and field implications

Panelists noted that some jurisdictions are already moving to adopt the new guidelines — the transcript records that New Hampshire has incorporated VVSG 2.0 into its state certification process — but emphasized that state certification and budgeting decisions determine field rollout. Hart said it has begun state-submission work to seek approvals and will provide pathways for jurisdictions to integrate VVSG 2.0 functionality into existing deployments using the EAC life-cycle policy.

What’s next

Hart said it will pursue state approvals and continue supporting its installed Varity systems while fielding 2.0-certified capabilities. SLI said it will refine internal test methods to reduce redundancy and improve efficiency. The EAC said it will produce guidance, training and technical assistance to help election officials and stakeholders implement VVSG 2.0 systems and to publish lessons learned from early certification campaigns.

Procedural notes

The meeting record shows routine procedural votes to adopt the agenda and to adjourn the meeting; no policy votes or regulatory changes were taken.

The meeting concluded with the commissioners and panelists urging continued collaboration among manufacturers, test labs, state certification bodies and the EAC to support broader adoption of VVSG 2.0 in the coming months and years.