• Programme
• Teaching
  • IPEC Summer 2012
  • Summer 2012
  • The art of cryptography: security, reductions, and group cryptography
  • Esecurity: secure internet & e-cash
  • Seminar Electronic Elections
  • Seminar Advanced Topics in Cryptography
  • Oberseminar Computer Security, Summer 2012
  • IPEC Winter 2012
  • Winter 2011/2012
  • IPEC Summer 2011
  • Summer 2011
  • IPEC Winter 2011
  • Winter 2010/2011
  • IPEC Summer 2010
  • Summer 2010
  • IPEC Winter 2010
  • Winter 2009/2010
  • IPEC Summer 2009
  • Summer 2009
  • IPEC Winter 2009
  • Winter 2008/2009
  • IPEC Summer 2008
  • Summer 2008
  • IPEC Winter 2008
  • Winter 2007/2008
  • IPEC Summer 2007
  • Summer 2007
  • IPEC Winter 2007
  • Winter 2006/2007
  • IPEC Summer 2006
  • Summer 2006
  • IPEC Winter 2006
  • Winter 2005/2006
• Theses topics
• Special events
• Schüler-Krypto

Seminar Electronic Elections

Corresponding entry in Aachen Campus, Bonn Basis.

Lecture

Prof. Dr. Joachim von zur Gathen, Yona Raekow, Daniel Loebenberger

Time & Place

• Organizational meeting: Monday, 02 April 2012, 16:30h, b-it 2.1.
• Conference: T.B.A., b-it T.B.A.

It is necessary to register for the seminar. In order to do so, please write an email to Yona Raekow and Daniel Loebenberger containing the keyword "Seminar Electronic Elections" in the subject.

The seminar can only accomodate a very limited amount of participants.

The seminars' mailing list

Students are encouraged to ask and answer any questions related to the seminar on the mailinglist:

You can subscribe to and unsubscribe from to the mailing list using the information given on the list's Info page.

Credit Requirements

This semester the seminar will be held in an entirely new mode as a "Conference Seminar". In addition to diving into the interesting world of electronic elections, you will also gather first hand experience of academic life. Indeed, you will get acquainted with the entire life cycle of a research conference.

To obtain credits you need to:

• Write a paper in LaTeX about the topic assigned to you (approx 15 pages).
• Prepare 3 reviews for papers of your fellow class mates (1 page per review).
• Give a presentation during the conference.
• Prepare a final version of your paper, that incorporates all changes suggested by the reviewers, the organizers and during the conference.

A note on citations:

All of your references have to be included in your bibliography. Word by word citations must be put between quotes with a direct reference to the author. If you use figures from other documents you need to put a reference also there.

In LaTeX the command \cite{elec12} inserts a reference to the document with  the label elec12 as specified in your bibliography file. To make the reference visible you need to run latex, bibtex, latex, latex for correct output.

If you do not follow those obvious rules on citations, you will obtain no credit for your paper.

Contents

Decision finding processes in most democratic societies are guided by the election of representatives. Some smaller states also conduct voting for particular decisions. Apart from political elections, a lot of other voting processes are in use to determine leaderships, opinions, ... Nowadays we require democratic elections to be free and fair. This implies several features, like anonymity and secrecy. (Secret elections only take place since about the middle of the nineteenth century.) German law requires even more:

Die Abgeordneten des Deutschen Bundestages werden in allgemeiner, unmittelbarer, freier, gleicher und geheimer Wahl gewählt. GG Art. 38 Abs. 1 Satz 1 (The members of the German Federal Diet are elected in general, direct, free, fair and secret elections.)

Since the advent of computers and the internet people have tried to use the new means also in election processes. Major forces driving that are the cost and the election turnout. However, cheaper and faster election processes might have even more, yet unpredictable effects on society and democracy.

In this seminar we will look at various realizations of such voting systems and discuss the most important features (and flaws) of those systems.

The following topics will be discussed in the seminar:

Basic concepts:

• History and goals of voting systems
• Formal requirements for voting systems: Common Criteria et al.
• Homomorphic encryption
• Voter verifiable paper audit trail and cryptographic verifiability
• Remote e-voting

Software:

• HELIOS: A remote voting system
• The Estonian voting system based on SERVE
• The POLYAS system
• ADDER: Another voting system

Hardware:

• The Indian voting system
• Nedap voting machine
• Hamburger Wahlstift

Feel free to propose additional topics related to electronic elections.

Time line

Note that the deadlines set are strict! No late hand-ins will be accepted. If you fail to submit on time you will get no credit on the specific task.

If you want to practice your talk, schedule a meeting with the organizers.

Have fun!

Information on LaTeX

Documentation:

• LaTeX cookbook (in german).
• Creating presentations with LaTeX.

Links:

• Windows:
  • Distribution MikTeX.
  • Editor TeXnicCenter.
• Linux:
  • Distribution tetex.
  • Editor kile.
• Mac OS X:
  • Distribution MacTeX.
  • Editor TeXShop.

Allocation

2 SWS, 4 credits

• Media Informatics, Computer and Communication Technology.
• University of Bonn - Computer Science, A.
• University of Bonn - Mathematics.