Trust in internet election observing the Norwegian decryption and counting ceremony

Abstract

This paper discusses the Decryption and Counting Ceremony held in conjunction with the internet voting trial on election day in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development of Norway in 2013. We examine the organizers' ambition of making the decryption and counting of electronic votes public in order to sustain trust in internet voting. We introduce a pragmatic approach to trust that emphasises the inseparability of truth from witnessing it. Based on this and on a description of how the event was made observable and how the complexities in the counting process were disclosed, we discuss what we term economy of truth from the perspective of the IT community involved in the ceremony. We claim that broadening the economy of truth by including more explicitly social and political perspectives in the ceremony, and in internet elections in general, and how witnessing is brought about, would make a more solid case for understanding how democracy is transformed.