Could on-line voting boost desire to vote? – Technology acceptance perceptions of young Hungarian citizens

Abstract

In our paper we develop and test the argument that intent to i-vote (to use on-line voting systems) drives intent to vote, while intent to i-vote is influenced by four key attitudes: performance expectation, perception on ease of use, trust in the internet and trust in the government. We show that these findings contradict those which exclusively identified economical, legal, and cultural drivers to enhance democratic participation in the Central and Eastern European region. Rooted cardinally in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) six hypotheses were set, and then tested with partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling. In the context of young, educated and internet-ready Hungarian voters the testing of the hypotheses has shown high level of on-line voting intent and that perception of on-line voting would enhance voting desire amongst young Hungarian internet users. Also, our findings show that performance expectation, perception on ease of use and trust in the internet are positively associated with i-voting intent.