E-Voting Conference in Austria

I am at the 3rd International E-Voting Conference in Bergenz, Austria. There are people here from about 30 different countries - political scientists, election administrators, voting system experts and vendors, computer scientists. Many are leading efforts in their countries to introduce electronic voting (which includes remote e-voting, also called Internet voting, as well as e-voting machines in polling places). Yesterday, I presented a paper from my dissertation research on Internet voting (my powerpoint presentation will be posted here soon).

I was hoping to blog live from the conference, but unfortunately (and ironically) the hotel's wireless Internet access has been disabled during the conference proceedings (and all of last night) so the presentations can be streamed live on the conference's website. The presentations (and live streaming) start today at 9:00 am (that's 3:00 am in Washington, DC), available at: http://www.e-voting.cc/

Below is the conference program.

The 3rd International Conference on E-Voting promises to become a meeting point for Experts from all over the world, discussing technical, social and legal aspects of E-Voting in the Castle Hofen, in Bregenz.

Like in the last years, we have had a double-blind review system to guarantee a high quality of speakers and papers for the Conference. In total we have received more than 30 contributions. The following papers were selected to be presented and discussed at the Conference:


Wednesday, 6th August

Pre-Conference Programme
(Admission is included in the participation fee)

09:00 Competition

19:00 Welcome Cocktail



Thursday, 7th August

09:00 Welcome Notes by Michael Remmert, Rüdiger Grimm and Robert Krimmer

Session 1: E-Voting Experiences
Chair: Robert Krimmer

11:00 E-Voting in the Netherlands; from General Acceptance to General Doubt in Two Years
Leontine Loeber

11:45 Improving the Transparency of Remote E-Voting: The Estonian Experience
Epp Maaten; Thad Hall


Session 2: Empirical Findings of E-Voting
Chair: Gregor Wenda

14:00 Assessing the Impact of E-Voting Technologies on Electoral Outcomes: an Analysis of Buenos Aires’ 2005 Congressional Election
Gabriel Katz, R. Michael Alvarez, Ernesto Calvo, Marcelo Escolar, Julia Pomares

14:45 Assessing Internet Voting as an Early Voting Reform in the United States
Alicia Kolar Prevost


Session 3: Legal & Procedural Issues of E-Voting
Chair: Susanne Caarls

16:00 A Methodology for Assessing Procedural Security: A Case Study in E-Voting
Komminist Weldemariam, Adolfo Villafiorita

16:45 Secure Remote Voter Registration
Victor Morales-Rocha, Jordi Puiggali, Miguel Soriano

17:30 Long-term Retention in E-Voting – Legal Requirements and Technical Implementation
Rotraud Gitter, Lucie Langer, Susanne Okunick, Zoi Opitz-Talidou

18:15 International Programme Committee Meeting

19:30 Reception in Bregenz



Friday, 8th August

Session 4: Comparison of E-Voting
Chair: Thad Hall

09:00 The E-Voting Readiness Index: A Survey
Robert Krimmer, Ronald Schuster

09:45 Malfunction or Misfits: Comparing Requirements, Inputs, and Public Confidence Outcomes of E-Voting in the U.S. and Europe
John Sebes, Gregory A. Miler


Session 5: Verification of E-Voting
Chair: Melanie Volkamer

11:00 Simple and Secure Electronic Voting with Prêt à Voter
David Lundin

11:45 Improving the Farnel Voting Scheme
Roberto Araújo, Peter Y. A. Ryan


Session 6: Certification of E-Voting
Chair: Thomas Buchsbaum

14:00 Development of a Formal IT Security Model for Remote Electronic Voting Systems
Melanie Volkamer, Rüdiger Grimm

14:45 The Certification of E-Voting Mechanisms. Fighting against Opacity
Jordi Barrat i Esteve

16:00 Workshops
Workshop 1: Regulation & Certification
Workshop 2: Observation & Evaluation
Workshop 3: E-Voting - Where are we heading?

18:30 Conference Dinner & Best Paper Ceremony


Saturday, 9th August

Session 7: Technological Issues of E-Voting
Chair: Rüdiger Grimm

09:00 Code Voting with Linkable Group Signatures
Jörg Helbach, Jörg Schwenk, Sven Schäge

09:45 CAPTCHA-based Code Voting
Rolf Oppliger, Jörg Schwenk, Christoph Löhr


Session 8: Political Issues of E-Voting
Chair: Jordi Barrat

11:00 E-Voting in Brazil – Reinforcing Institutions While Diminishing Citizenship
José Rodrigues Filho

11:45 The Voting Processes in Digital Participative Budget: A Case Study
Cristiano Maciel, Gleison Pereira de Souza

12:30 Closing Remarks by Robert Krimmer