1st International Workshop on Election Infrastructure Security (EIS 2022)
September 30, 2022

In conjunction with the 27th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2022)
 
September 26-30, 2022, Copenhagen, Denmark

Call for Papers

Fair and secure elections are the bedrock of democracy. In today’s world, voting and elections rely on a complex infrastructure comprising voter registration databases, several types of electronic devices (voting machines, optical scanners, etc.), protocols to securely transmit data from polling places to central processing facilities, various software applications to count, tabulate and analyze votes, and physical facilities to securely store ballots and voting equipment. People’s confidence in the result of elections is heavily dependent on a nation’s ability to secure such complex infrastructure and guarantee the integrity and confidentiality of the vote.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration (CISA), a United States agency charged with securing the nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure, classifies election infrastructure as “critical infrastructure”. In fact, election infrastructure and processes are subject to attack by malicious actors just like any other critical infrastructure (e.g., energy systems, transportation systems, and financial systems). Recent events have shown how attacks against voting systems and election infrastructure, disinformation and misinformation campaigns, and claims of election fraud, whether founded or not, can affect people’s confidence in the integrity of the system and alienate voters. As threats evolve and become more sophisticated, the research community is called to find novel approaches and techniques to ensure the security of voting systems and election infrastructure and the confidentiality and integrity of the vote.

This workshop aims at providing researchers and practitioners in different areas of security (network security, cryptography, etc.), networking, hardware architectures, software engineering, system engineering, machine learning, and natural language processing with an interdisciplinary forum to present, discuss, and exchange ideas that address the challenges of current and next-generation Election Infrastructure systems. The workshop seeks submissions from academia, government, and industry presenting novel research results in all practical and theoretical aspects of Election Infrastructure Security.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Voter registration databases
  • Voting machines
  • Vote counting machines
  • Electronic poll books
  • Physical security of voting equipment
  • Access control
  • Security standards
  • Disinformation & misinformation campaigns

Important Dates

Paper submission due: June 30, 2022 July 15, 2022

Notification to authors:July 30, 2022 August 18, 2022

Camera ready due: August 10, 2022 September 18, 2022

General Chair

  • Karen Hoyt-Stewart, Virginia Department of Elections, USA

Program Committee Chairs

  • Massimiliano Albanese, George Mason University, USA
  • Jack Davidson, University of Virginia, USA

Steering Committee

  • Massimiliano Albanese, George Mason University, USA
  • Josh Benaloh, Microsoft Research, USA
  • Jack Davidson, University of Virginia, USA
  • Karen Hoyt-Stewart, Virginia Department of Elections, USA
  • Chris Krebs, Krebs Stamos Group

Proceedings Chair

  • Vincenzo Moscato, University of Naples, Italy

Publicity Chair

  • Giancarlo Sperlì, University of Naples, Italy

Technical Program Committee

  • Josh Benaloh, Microsoft Research, USA
  • Matt Bernhard, VotingWorks, USA
  • Aleks Essex, Western University, Canada
  • Oksana Kulyk, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Daniel P. Lopresti, Lehigh University, USA
  • Peter Y. A. Ryan, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
  • Carsten Schürmann, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Philip B. Stark, University of California, Berkeley, USA
  • Vanessa Teague, Australian National University, USA
  • Melanie Volkamer, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Keynote Speaker

Arielle Schneider, Privacy Officer, Virginia Department of Elections

Title. Disinformation Rising: The Problem of Election Information Integrity

Abstract. This talk addresses the growing international problem of election-related disinformation, discussing both the EU's successful negotiation of agreements with large online platforms to establish technological, administrative and legal best practices that support an accurate elections-information ecosystem, and several US efforts undertaken to address disinformation.  Both paths illustrate the need for government officials at every level to act only within their clearly defined scope of authority, and to do so with immense transparency.  Local and regional elections officials world-wide can leverage the framework, shared terminology, and technology agreements between the EU and large online platforms to more directly, transparently, and effectively handle election information threats locally while ultimately, fostering information integrity internationally.  Technological and procedural transparency underpin this framework and are implemented through the individual agreements that require transparency regarding algorithms used for recommending content or products to users; transparency on the factors used both at the elections administration and content provider levels to determine when content is removed; and transparency to the public at large through provisions allowing researchers access to key data that will enable society to learn more about influence operations and disinformation.   


Arielle Schneider, Privacy Officer, Virginia Department of ElectionsBio. As the Virginia Department of Elections' (ELECT) first Privacy Officer, Arielle Anderson Schneider has spent the last two years building a privacy program for state and local elections from the ground up.  A firm believer that cybersecurity predicates meaningful privacy, she regularly advises local elections offices and ELECT’s technology and business divisions on privacy by design, election law and locality election security.  As the Chair of the Virginia Voter Registration Systems Security Advisory Workgroup, she's spearheading a substantial revision of existing cybersecurity standards for local election offices, slated for approval by the State Board of Elections in November 2022.  Her expanded focus on real-world election technology, security and privacy allows her to explore solutions that promote privacy in elections at a national level; she most recently spoke about election privacy program management at the MS-ISAC/EI-ISAC Annual Meeting in August 2022.   A native of Virginia since law school, Arielle received undergraduate degrees from the University of North Florida, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, while completing a Florida Gubernatorial Fellowship in 2011, a Google Fellowship in 2013, and a Kennedy Fellowship in 2016.  In her spare time, she loves to ski, snowboard, travel, and eat.  


Program

Friday, September 30, 2022

All times are in Central European Summer Time (GMT+2)

 

02:30PM–02:45PM

Opening Remarks: Massimiliano Albanese, Chris Krebs, and Josh Benaloh

Keynote

Session Chair:
Massimiliano Albanese

02:45PM–03:45PM

Speaker: Arielle A. Schneider, Privacy Officer, Virginia Department of Elections

"Disinformation Rising: The Problem of Election Information Integrity"

Session #1

Audits

Session Chair:
Josh Benaloh
Microsoft Research

03:45PM–04:10PM

"Non(c)esuch Ballot-Level Comparison Risk-Limiting Audits," Philip Stark (University of California, Berkeley, USA 🇺🇸)

04:10PM–04:35PM

"Ballot-Polling Audits of Instant-Runoff Voting Elections with a Dirichlet-Tree Model," Floyd Everest, Michelle Blom (University of Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺), Philip Stark (University of California, Berkeley, USA 🇺🇸), Peter J. Stuckey (Monash University, Australia 🇦🇺), Vanessa Teague (The Australian National University, Australia 🇦🇺) and Damjan Vukcevic (University of Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺)

 

04:35PM–04:45AM

Break

Session #2

Election Infrastructure

Session Chair:
Peter Y. A. Ryan
University of Luxembourg

04:45PM–05:10PM

"Connecting Incident Reporting Infrastructure to Election Day Proceedings," Kamryn Parker, Hoda Mehrpouyan, Jaclyn Kettler (Boise State University, USA 🇺🇸) and Chad Houck (Idaho Secretary of State's Office, USA 🇺🇸)

05:10PM–05:35PM

"Council of Europe Guidelines on the Use of ICT in Electoral Processes," Ardita Driza Maurer, Melanie Volkamer (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany 🇩🇪) and Robert Krimmer (University of Tartu, Estonia 🇪🇪)

05:35PM–06:00PM

"Why is Online Voting Still Largely a Black Box," Michael Kirsten, Melanie Volkamer and Bernhard Beckert (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany 🇩🇪)

 

06:00PM–06:10PM

Closing Remarks

Submission

Submitted papers must not substantially overlap with papers that have been published or simultaneously submitted to a journal or a conference with proceedings. Contributions are not required to be anonymized, and are to be made to the submission web site at http://www.easychair.org. Only PDF files will be accepted.

The workshop proceedings will be published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series. Submissions must be prepared in LaTeX (recommended) or Microsoft Word using the LNCS template. Full papers must be between 12 and 16 pages in length, and and short papers must be between 6 and 11 pages. Authors are encouraged to include their ORCIDs.

Submissions not meeting these guidelines risk rejection without consideration of their merits. Papers must be received by the deadline of June 30, 2022 to be considered. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to authors by July 30, 2022. Camera ready papers must be submitted by August 10, 2022. Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that one of the authors will register and present the paper at the workshop.

Submit now!