The Rice Center for Voting will be restarting the Electronic Voting Technologies/Workshop for Trustworthy Elections (EVT/WOTE) conference on December 7, 2026 in Kraft Hall 130 at Rice University. EVT/WOTE serves as a place for voting researchers, non-profits voting entities and voting administrators to gather and share ideas about current research efforts and pressing practical needs.
Keynote speaker
EVT/WOTE 2026 Call for Papers
2026 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop/Workshop on Trustworthy Elections
December 7th, 2026
Houston, TX
Sponsored by the Rice Center for Voting
Important Dates
Submissions due: September 7th, 2026
Notification of acceptance: September 30th, 2026
Final paper files due: October 31st, 2026
Overview
For over a decade, the EVT/WOTE workshop provided a forum for research on the technical side of elections, particularly how technology meets real-world constraints such as usability, accuracy, reliability, robustness, security, transparency, equality, privacy, and accessibility. The Rice Center for Voting is re-initiating this meeting to bring together people ranging from computer science and human-computer interaction experts through political scientists, legal experts, election administrators, and voting equipment vendors. EVT/WOTE seeks to publish original research on important problems in all aspects of electronic voting technology.
EVT/WOTE '26 will be a one-day event, Monday, December 7th on the Rice University campus in Houston, TX. In addition to paper presentations, the workshop may include panel discussions with substantial time devoted to questions and answers. The workshop papers will be published electronically. Attendance at the workshop will be free and open to the public, although talks and refereed paper presentations will be by invitation only. There will be an award for the best paper.
Workshop Topics
Papers should contain original research in any area related to electronic voting technologies and verifiable elections. Example applications include but are not limited to:
- Ballot-box electronic voting systems
- Remote electronic voting systems
- Voter registration systems
- Procedures for ballot auditing
- Cryptographic (or non-cryptographic) verifiable election schemes
Example topics include but are not limited to:
- Attacks on existing systems
- Designs of new systems
- Formal or informal security or requirements analysis
- Examination of usability and accessibility issues
- Research on relevant regulations, standards, or laws
Case studies of real-world systems are encouraged, as long as their design and/or analysis suffice to constitute original research.
Submissions will be judged on originality, relevance, correctness, and clarity.
Submission Instructions
Papers must be received by 11:59 p.m. Central time on Monday, September 7th, 2026. All submissions will be electronic. Submissions should be finished, complete papers (not work in progress) and must be in PDF format. There will be a web form linked at https://centerforvoting.rice.edu/electronic-voting-technologies-workshop-trustworthy-elections-conference prior to the submission date.
Paper submissions should be at most 12 typeset pages, excluding bibliography and well-marked appendices. Submissions should be in two-column format, using 10 point Times Roman type on 12 point leading, in a text block of 6.5" by 9". There is no limit on the length of appendices, but reviewers are not required to read them. Once accepted, papers must fit in 16 pages—including bibliography and any appendices—in the same format. Note that the authors’ names and affiliations should not be included per the anonymization policy that follows.
Paper submissions must be anonymized: author names and author affiliations must be removed; acknowledgements and other clear markers of affiliation (e.g., “we used data from XXX University”) should be removed or rewritten; self-citations should be rewritten to be neutral (e.g., “In previous work, Smith showed . . .”).
Simultaneous submission of the same work to multiple venues, submission of previously published work, or plagiarism constitutes dishonesty or fraud. Papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement forms will not be considered. Accepted submissions will be treated as confidential prior to publication on the USENIX EVT/WOTE '26 Web site; rejected submissions will be permanently treated as confidential.
Authors will be notified of acceptance by Wednesday, September 30, 2026. Revised final versions of accepted papers must be received by 11:59 p.m. Central time on Saturday, October 31, 2026. Each accepted submission may be assigned a member of the program committee to act as its shepherd through the preparation of the final paper. The assigned member will act as a conduit for feedback from the committee to the authors.
Questions about submissions may be sent to the program co-chairs at evtwote@rice.edu
Program Committee
Philip Kortum, Rice University
Mike Byrne, Rice University
Vanessa Teague, Thinking Cybersecurity and The Australian National University
Matthew Bernhard, Enhanced Voting