Framing Electoral Transparency: A comparative analysis of three e-votes counting ceremonies

This paper takes up the question of transparency in electronically enabled elections (e-voting). The principle of transparency is central to electoral governance as it provides means for electoral stakeholders to observe and ensure the integrity of an election. However, the issue of transparency in the field of e-voting has been proved to be di cult to tackle practically as well as analytically. In this paper we introduce the notion of ‘frames of transparency’ and deploy it to conduct a comparative analysis of three e-votes counting ceremonies in Norway, Estonia and Australia. We ask the question of how transparency is framed during these ceremonies, that is what features of the electronic votes counting process are made visible and what others are omitted. Our analysis reveals that e-voting ceremonies emphasizes bureaucratic and technocratic frames of transparency, while the democratic frame is the most di cult to uphold.