Over the past quarter century, one focus of the rapid development of cryptography has been the evolution of verifiable secret-ballot election systems. Although many of the early systems were clunky and fragile, the technology has advanced to the point where there are now many feasible alternatives that enable complete large-scale elections to be conducted with greater integrity and robustness than current paper-based systems. This talk will survey some of the techniques that have been used and ways that these components can be assembled to construct end-to-end universally verifiable election systems. No prior cryptographic knowledge will be assumed.
Gates 4B (opposite 490) Monday 05/24/04 1630 hrs