EAC Report of Investigation Dominion DSuite 5.5 B

United States Election Assistance Commission
Report of Investigation
Dominion Voting Systems D-Suite 5.5-B

Williamson County, Tennessee
March 31, 2022
Jonathon Panek
Director, Voting System Testing and Certification
U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
633 3rd St. NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20001
Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 2
Reported Anomaly ........................................................................................................................ 2
Formal Investigation ..................................................................................................................... 3
Testing and Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 3
Conclusion of Formal Investigation ............................................................................................... 4
US Election Assistance Commission

Report of Investigation Page | 1
Introduction
In late 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which created the
U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and vested it with the responsibility of setting voting
system standards and providing for the testing and certification of voting systems. This
mandate represented the first time the Federal government provided for the voluntary testing,
certification, and decertification of voting systems nationwide. In response to this HAVA
requirement, the EAC has developed the Federal Voting System Testing and Certification
Program.
The EAC’s Testing and Certification Program includes several quality monitoring tools that help
ensure that voting systems continue to meet the EAC’s voting system standards as the systems
are manufactured, delivered, and used in Federal elections. These aspects of the program
enable the EAC to independently monitor the continued compliance of fielded voting systems.
One of these tools is field anomaly reporting.
Election officials may submit notices of voting system anomalies directly to the EAC. An
anomaly is defined as an irregular or inconsistent action or response from the voting system, or
system component, which resulted in the system or component not functioning as intended or
expected. Anomaly reports may indicate a voting system is not in compliance with the
Voluntary Voting System Guidelines or the procedural requirements of this EAC Testing and
Certification Program.
An informal inquiry is the first step taken when information of this nature is presented to the
EAC. The sole purpose of the informal inquiry is to determine whether a formal investigation is
warranted. The outcome of an informal inquiry is limited to a decision on referral for
investigation. A formal investigation is an official investigation by the EAC to determine whether
a voting system warrants decertification. The result of a formal investigation is a Report of
Investigation.
Reported Anomaly
On November 3, 2021, the EAC received a report from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s (TN
SoS) office that they were planning an investigation into an anomaly observed in Williamson
County, Tennessee during a municipal election held on October 26, 2021, regarding Dominion
D-Suite 5.5-B ImageCast Precinct (ICP) tabulators. Close poll reports from 7 of the 18 ICP
tabulators used during the election did not match the number of ballots scanned. Subsequent
tabulation on the jurisdiction’s ICC central count scanner provided the correct tally. The central
count tabulation was confirmed via hand count of the paper ballot records on October 27,
2021.
Discussions with the TN SoS on December 17, 2021, and January 5, 2022, following their
investigation, provided additional details to the EAC. The details of the anomaly were

confirmed and reproduced during the state investigation, though the root cause of the anomaly
was not determined.
Formal Investigation
Based upon the information obtained from the TN SoS, the EAC initiated a formal investigation
into the matter to determine the necessary actions to obtain the root cause and remedy the
issue. The investigation was conducted at the Williamson County Elections Commission facility
on January 19 through January 22, 2022. This analysis was performed by both EAC accredited
Voting System Test Laboratories (VSTL), Pro V&V and SLI Compliance. The EAC, Williamson
County staff, TN SoS, and Dominion staff were present during the analysis.
Testing and Analysis

The first step of the VSTL analysis was verification of the system configuration. Hashes of all
components involved were collected and compared to the repository of hashes for the EAC
certified system. It was discovered that the system was installed with outdated versions of two
configuration files when the system was upgraded from D-Suite 5.5 to D-Suite 5.5-B in January
of 2021.
Next, a copy of the election definition used on election day was used to make Compact Flash
(CF) cards for the ImageCast Precinct (ICP) scanners and ImageCast X (ICX) ballot marking
devices. This election definition was imported into the D-Suite 5.5-B system from a definition
originally created on the D-Suite 5.5 system.
Ballots were printed from the ICX and tabulated through the ICP scanners. Multiple ICP
scanners were used for tabulation including some that originally exhibited the anomaly during
the election and some that did not. Following tabulation, close poll reports and audit logs from
the ICP scanners were examined. Results showed that the anomaly was recreated on each of
the ICP scanners. This process was repeated several times to understand and isolate the details
of exactly when the anomaly occurred and circumstances that may have led to the anomaly
occurring.
Analysis of audit log information revealed entries that coincided with the manifestation of the
anomaly; a security error “QR code signature mismatch” and a warning message “Ballot format
or id is unrecognizable” indicating a QR code misread occurred. When these events were
logged, the ballot was rejected. Subsequent resetting of the ICP scanners and additional
tabulation demonstrated that each instance of the anomaly coincided with the previously
mentioned audit log entries, though not every instance of those audit log entries resulted in the
anomaly.
Further analysis of the anomaly behavior showed that the scanners correctly tabulated all
ballots until the anomaly was triggered. Following the anomaly, ballots successfully scanned

and tabulated by the ICP were not reflected in the close poll reports on the affected ICP
scanners.
Additional iterations of testing were performed after updating the configuration files previously
mentioned to the proper versions associated with the D-Suite 5.5-B system. The anomaly was
recreated using the correct configuration files with the originally programmed election
definition.
A final test was performed using an election definition recreated entirely on the D-Suite 5.5-B
system with identical parameters to the definition used during the election and for prior
testing. The anomaly was not observed during this test, and there were no instances of the
security error “QR code signature mismatch” or warning message “Ballot format or id is
unrecognizable” in the audit log.
Conclusion of Formal Investigation

The direct cause of the anomaly was inconclusive. Based on the investigation, it’s reasonable to
conclude that the anomaly is related to the imported D-Suite 5.5 election definition used on the
D-Suite 5.5-B system.
On February 11, 2022, Dominion submitted a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to the EAC. The report
indicates that erroneous code is present in the EAC certified D-Suite 5.5-B and D-Suite 5.5-C
systems. The RCA report states that when the anomaly occurs, it’s due to a misread of the QR
code. If the QR code misread affects a certain part of the QR code, the ICP scanner mistakenly
interprets a bit in the code that marks the ballot as provisional. Once that misread happens, the
provisional flag is not properly reset after that ballot’s voting session. The result is that every
ballot scanned and tabulated by the machine after that misread is marked as provisional and
thus, not included in the tabulator’s close poll report totals.
Dominion has submitted Engineering Change Orders (ECO)s for the ICP software in the D-Suite
5.5-B and D-Suite 5.5-C systems: ECO 100826 and ECO 100827. Modified ICP source code was
submitted by Dominion that resets the provisional flag following each voting session. The ECO
analysis included source code review to confirm the change to both systems and to ensure no
other code is changed. A Trusted Build of the modified source code was performed to produce
the updated ICP software. This software was then tested for accuracy by processing two
thousand ballots printed by an ICX, utilizing the same election definition used in Williamson
County, TN on October 26, 2021.
The analysis and testing of the ECOs has demonstrated that the anomaly was successfully fixed.
No instance of the anomaly or the associated error or warning messages in the ICP audit logs
were observed during the testing. The EAC has approved ECO 100826 and ECO 100827 on
March 31, 2022.


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United States Election Assistance Commission

Dominion Voting Systems D-Suite 5.5-B

March 31, 2022

US Election Assistance Commission

US Election Assistance Commission

Testing and Analysis

US Election Assistance Commission

Conclusion of Formal Investigation

US Election Assistance Commission

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