Master Seminar: Theory and Security of Voting Systems (SoSe 2026)

Seminar 2 hours, Instructor: Michael Kirsten

Overview

Voting is an important part of democratic societies and potentially has a broad impact. Yet, with or without the use of modern technology, voting is full of algorithmic and security challenges, and the failure to address these challenges in a controlled manner may produce fundamental flaws in the voting system and potentially undermine critical societal aspects.

In this seminar, we discuss voting systems from various perspectives, notably social choice theory, security, and cryptography. What should a voting system fulfill? When is a voting system secure, even independent of the involved software? Which mechanisms should be investigated for that matter? Which methods are suitable to address these challenges?

We will investigate cryptographic voting systems, algorithmic tallying procedures, statistical methods to test the reliability of an election result, and distinguish the different layers of a voting system.

Required Knowledge

Foundations on cryptography and security, as taught, for instance, in the lecture IT-Sicherheit, are recommended. Depending on the specific seminar topic, foundations in statistics or combinatorics may be helpful. However, none of those are formally required to attend the seminar.

Seminar Language

Reading skills in English are required. For everything else, you can choose either German or English.

Organisation

This will be determined at a later point in time.