Communicating trust in the security of election technologies

Trust in the security of election systems, in particular in their ability to prevent vote manipulation, is crucial for conducting elections in democratic society. Such trust can be fragile, especially in presence of deliberate disinformation efforts, and is particularly hard to ensure for systems that rely on technologies that are difficult to understand for lay people. There is therefore a need for methods for effective trust communication, aimed at different stakeholders involved in elections and taking into account their mental models of election security risks.

In this project, we aim to develop such methods using human-centred security by design approach, integrating quantitative and qualitative empirical studies together with technical security analysis of election systems. We propose ways to build systems in such way that their trust can be effectively communicated, and furthermore take into the account the social aspect of elections.