A seminar room.

A professional education curriculum

Verifiable Custody for Mail Ballots

8 vendor-neutral modules, 10.5 contact hours, and one optional vendor session that is labelled on its face and never bundled.

Read this before delivering it

This curriculum is a credibility instrument first and a sales instrument second — and it only works in that order. Election officials can tell within ninety seconds whether they are in a training session or a pitch. The design rule: a participant must leave with knowledge that is useful even if they never buy anything.

At a glance

#ModuleDurationFormatPrereq
1The Custody Problem60 minLecture + discussionNone
2Chain of Custody as Evidence90 minLecture + case studyM1
3Cryptographic Foundations Without the Math90 minLecture + hands-onM1
4Append-Only Logs and What They Guarantee90 minLecture + exerciseM3
5Inclusion Proofs and the Voter-Facing Promise90 minLecture + demoM4
6Retention, Records Law, and Personal Liability60 minLecture + statute reviewM2
7Procuring and Evaluating Custody Systems90 minWorkshopM1–M6
8Communicating Verifiability to the Public60 minWorkshop + roleplayM1–M7
9MBLTS Implementation vendor-specific60 minVendor-specific — labeledM1–M8

Core sequence: 10.5 contact hours across 8 modules. Half-day executive version: Modules 1, 2, 5 and 8.

The exercises actually run

Seven of the modules ship a working instrument rather than a worksheet. Every one of them runs in your own browser, holds nothing on a server, and can be handed to a class without an installation step.

Accreditation paths

  • Election Center Professional Education Program — submit as a candidate elective session
  • State-level Recognized Election Official (REO) programs, delivered with state associations
  • State clerk association annual training

Delivery notes

  • Never deliver Module 9 without Modules 1–8. The credibility of the whole depends on the core being genuinely vendor-neutral.
  • Bring a practitioner. Once you have a pilot customer, co-deliver with their election director. A vendor teaching officials is tolerated; an official teaching officials with a vendor assisting is welcomed.
  • Materials to build: participant workbook, lifecycle mapping worksheet, browser-based hashing exercise, three anonymized vendor claim samples, case study packet, roleplay cards, one-page voter explainer template.
  • Feedback instrument: ask specifically whether the session felt like training or like a pitch. Act on the answer.