Enabling Informed Caution: Evaluating an Informative Video with Election Organizers

Election organizers play a central role in deciding which Internet voting systems are introduced.
However, they may not possess the technical expertise required to assess the security properties and trade-offs associated with Internet voting.
To support informed decision-making, we previously developed an informative video based on the scientific literature and expert feedback. This paper extends that work by evaluating the video with participants from its target audience: 53 election organizers from German universities, of whom 36 had experience organizing Internet elections and 17 did not. We investigate how their perceptions of the applicability of Internet voting across different election contexts changed after viewing the video and identify opportunities for improving the video. Ratings for high-stakes political elections decreased, particularly among participants without prior Internet voting experience, whereas ratings for university elections remained largely stable.
Our findings suggest that the video can make them more cautious about the applicability of Internet voting and support more differentiated assessments across election contexts.
... mehr
Most participants liked the video. We discuss implications for future iterations based on participant feedback.