In the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the Election Assistance Commission, in consultation with the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), was mandated to submit a report on human factors, usability, and accessibility to Congress. Subsequently NIST was asked to develop usability performance requirements for Human Performance-Based Standards and Usability Testing to be part of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines that are being developed to enhance voting systems.

UCD worked with NIST to develop a conformance test based on human performance benchmarks. UCD performed background analysis; proposed a test protocol including a standard ballot, standard instructions for the voter, and a selection of statistical analyses to determine performance; and conducted multiple conformance tests (testing thousands of participants in performance based tests) to show construct validity, repeatability, and reproducibility from various locations in the US.

Note: In November 2008, the NIST team received a gold medal from the Department of Commerce for scientific achievement in voting based on the work performed by UCD.