USENIX Security '22 - Investigating State-of-the-Art Practices for Fostering Subjective Trust in Online Voting through Interviews

Karola Marky, Leibniz University Hannover and University of Glasgow; Paul Gerber and Sebastian Günther, Technical University of Darmstadt; Mohamed Khamis, University of Glasgow; Maximilian Fries and Max Mühlhäuser, Technical University of Darmstadt

Ensuring voters' subjective trust is key to adopting any voting system. Consequently, researchers, experts, and policymakers have proposed and implemented practices to foster the trust of voters in online voting. State-of-the-art practices include security features, public information, or evaluations. However, it remains unclear how these practices affect the voters' subjective trust. Through interviews with 26 participants, this work presents the first analysis of voters' perceptions considering state-of-the-art practices that help voters determine their trust in Internet voting. Among our results, we show practices, such as expert evaluations, that we identified as mandatory. Further, we found practices, such as individual verifiability, that facilitate trust. Others, such as vote updating, have a negative impact due to unfamiliarity. We, furthermore, report misconceptions, discuss ways to address them through different information interfaces or as part of the voting software. Finally, we list recommendations for the specific realization of expedient practices to inform developers and policymakers.

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