How to increase transparency and trust in internet voting systems: An experimental study

A lack of transparency in internet voting systems – in particular, how the integrity of the election result is ensured – has been commonly mentioned as one of the main barriers to its adoption. We conduct an empirical study (N = 940) evaluating the factors affecting the voters’ perception of transparency and trust in an internet voting system. Thereby, we adopt a proposal from prior research that conceptualizes transparency as consisting of several individual dimensions. Our study shows that the transparency dimensions of information availability, understandability, and verifiability have a significant positive effect on voters’ perception towards the general transparency of the voting system, and also that transparency has a positive effect on trust in the system. In addition, we investigate how the information presented about the system and the procedures available to voters for verifying the integrity of their cast vote affects voters’ perception of transparency and trust in the system. We find that providing technical documentation about the system significantly increases perceived transparency and trust. We conclude that while such information is unlikely to be understood by most voters, it effectively signals the possibility of expert audits of the system.