Comp Security Voting Systems

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course will examine the security requirements for voting systems (particularly those used for civil elections in the United States), how various designs and implementations meet or fail to meet these requirements, and how such systems can be improved. The course will focus on vote-casting technology ("voting machines") as well as the backend election management systems that define ballots, register voters, provision precinct equipment, and count and report vote tallies. We will devote particular attention to understanding how the legal framework and historical threat models relate to specific software and hardware technical requirements. We will look at a range of formal and informal proposed designs for election systems, specific systems that have been or are currently in active use, and various studies that have been made of these systems and designs. The course will focus on software security issues, but will also touch on usability, threat modeling, and legal and governance issues. More broadly, the course will use election security and integrity as a case study in designing critical systems to meet complex threats under tightly constrained tradeoffs.