The Trust in Voting Systems (TVS) Measure

Abstract

It is essential to democracy that voters trust voting systems enough to participate in elections and use these systems. Unfortunately, voter trust has been found to be low in many situations, which could detrimentally impact human-computer interactions in voting. Therefore, it is important to understand the degree to which voters trust any specific voting method. Voting researchers have developed and used measures of overall trust in technology; yet researchers have long argued that trust in systems is domain-specific, implying that system-specific measures should be used instead. To address this latter point, this paper describes the development of a psychometrically reliable and validated instrument called the Trust in Voting Systems (TVS) measure. The TVS not only allows researchers to understand group mean differences in trust across voting systems; it also allows researchers to understand individual differences in trust within systems—all of which collectively serves to inform and improve voting systems.