Enhancing Trust in E-Voting Through Knowledge Management: The Case of the UAE
The United Arab Emirates’ society has grown comfortable with the ubiquitous information and communication technologies. Despite repeatedly ranking high in terms of e-government readiness and social acceptance of ICTs, there were thoughts that the government decision to push for using e-voting in the first elections held in the country’s history would be crossing the boundary of social acceptance of technology. This paper assesses the role of knowledge management in the e-voting process in the UAE’s first election. A case study is presented to explore the assumptions on the impact of introducing an evoting system on the level of trust in government and the role of knowledge management in increasing transparency. The paper argues that knowledge management can play an important role in widening social acceptance in e-government processes such as e-voting through increasing transparency, thus enhancing trust in government. However, a certain reservoir of trust in government is a prerequisite for social acceptance of e-voting, regardless of the e-readiness level in the country.