Course Schedule Fall 2020
This schedule is subject to change. Please check back frequently.
Part 1. The Election Cybersecurity Landscape
Monday Seminar |
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Aug. 31 Cybersecurity Threats to U.S. Elections Introductions and overview of the course; What happened during the 2016 election? What's been done since then to improve security? How can we, as a class, help? |
Sep. 7 Labor Day No lecture |
Sep. 14 Voting as a Security Problem The security mindset; Election security requirements and trade-offs; Evolution of voting technology and election fraud; The rise of electronic voting |
Sep. 21 Computers at the Polls Vulnerabilities in U.S. voting machines; Electronic voting around the world; Architecture and election security |
Sep. 28 Election Procedures and Threats Voter registration and authentication; Tabulation and reporting; Physical controls; Logic and accuracy testing, parallel testing; Post-election audits |
Oct. 5 Evidence-Based Elections: Risk-Limiting Audits Requirements and goals for an RLA; RLA technologies: ballot and batch, comparison and polling |
Oct. 12 Usability and Accessibility Accessibility and usability guidelines Ballot marking devices and verification Emerging assistive technologies |
Oct. 19 No lecture |
Oct. 26 Information Warfare and Elections Social media manipulation; Hacks against political campaigns; Attacking voter confidence; Security best practices |
Part 2. Election Security and Public Policy
Monday Seminar |
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Nov. 2 Federal and State Policy Federalism and Election Policy; HAVA, the EAC and VVSG 2.0; Survey of state practices; Elections in Michigan, recent changes |
Nov. 9 What happened on Election Day? / Policy Reform TBD / Prospects for reform in Congress: recent bills; Prospects for reform through the Courts: recent lawsuits |
Part 3. Future Prospects for Securing Elections
Monday Seminar |
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Nov. 16 Internet Voting Vote-by-mail and UOCAVA settings Challenges for online voting Case studies: D.C., Estonia, Australia Blockchain? |
Nov. 23 Thanksgiving Break No lecture |
Nov. 30 End-to-end Verification Cryptographic approaches to securing elections; Protocols and properties Open problems and challenges |
Dec. 7 Project Presentations Each group will present their project in class |
Project write-up Due Friday, December 11