17-400 Electronic Voting

Units: 12.0 Department: Software Engineering Related URLs: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/mse After the punched-card disaster in Florida in 2000, the U.S. has been rushing to replace old voting equipment with direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines (sometimes incorrectly lumped together as touchscreens). Recent examination of these machines by computer security experts has revealed significant security vulnerabilities, leading to a call by some computer scientists to either discontinue use of such machines or equip them with a printing device that would enable the voter to see a paper record of how she had voted before leaving the voting booth. This voter-verifiable paper trail idea has polarized the voting community, leading to bills in Congress and in some states to require it but with vendors, election officials and public advocacy groups strongly in opposition. Each meeting will be devoted to a technical lecture followed by an hour of general discussion. The course is open to juniors, seniors and graduate students. Students from outside SCS are welcome. No advanced technical background is required except for some security and cryptography topics. Each student will participate in a team project, with a presentation to be made on the last day of the course. Grading will be based on class participation, the project paper and a final exam. There will be assigned readings but no midterm or written homework. This course counts as an elective in the Computation, Organizations and Society (COS) Ph.D. program. Topics include: Voting history and administration, vote buying, election rigging, punched cards, optical scanning, DRE machines, paper trails & Internet voting

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Spring 2005 times

No sections available for semester Spring 2005.