Trust Through Explainability in Verifiable Online Voting Systems

Since the beginning of the pandemic, online voting systems have been increasingly discussed and used in secret elections and polls. On the one hand, the question is raised as to the technical and organizational trustworthiness of the systems used (i.e., how the security of these systems is assessed in the course of an evaluation of their properties) and, on the other hand, as to how the voters’ trust in these systems (and ultimately the outcome) is influenced and what role explainability plays in this context (i.e., to what extent voters understand the functionality and/or properties). The goals of this project are a networking of the two topics Engineering Secure Systems and Knowledge for Action in the Helmholtz program Engineering Digital Futures (within the research field information) as well as an impulse for special research questions in the context of technical-organizational trustworthiness and influences on trust in online voting systems, particularly concerning the role of explainability.

Project website 

Funding body: KIT-Bereichsprojekt

Partners: Bernhard Beckert, Linda Nierling, Reinhard Heil, Michael Kirsten, Jascha Bareis

Funding period:  01.01.2022-31.12.2022

Contact: Melanie Volkamer