Course Schedule Fall 2024
This schedule is subject to change. Please check back frequently.
Part 1. The Election Cybersecurity Landscape
Aug. 26 Week 1: 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? ● NASEM, Securing the Vote (2018), Chapters 1–3
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Sep. 2 Labor Day No class |
Sep. 9 Week 2: 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. 16 Week 3: Computers at the Polls Vulnerabilities in U.S. voting machines; Electronic voting around the world; Architecture and election security |
Sep. 23 Week 4: Election Procedures and Threats Voter registration and authentication; Tabulation and reporting; Physical controls; Logic and accuracy testing, parallel testing; Post-election audits |
Sep. 30 Week 5: TK TK |
Oct. 7 Week 6: Evidence-Based Elections: Risk-Limiting Audits Requirements and goals for an RLA; RLA technologies: ballot and batch, comparison and polling |
Oct. 14 Week 7: Usability and Accessibility Accessibility and usability guidelines Ballot marking devices and verification Emerging assistive technologies |
Oct. 21 Fall break No class |
Oct. 28 Week 8: Information Warfare and Elections Social media manipulation; Hacks against political campaigns; Attacking voter confidence; Security best practices |
Part 2. Election Security and Public Policy
Nov. 4 Week 9: 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. 11 Week 10: 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
Nov. 18 Week 11: Internet Voting Vote-by-mail and UOCAVA settings Challenges for online voting Case studies: D.C., Estonia, Australia Blockchain? |
Nov. 25 Week 12: End-to-end Verification Cryptographic approaches to securing elections; Protocols and properties Open problems and challenges |
Dec. 2 Week 13: TK TK |
Dec. 9 Week 14: Project Presentations Each group will present their project in class |
Project write-up Due Thursday, December 12