[Page 8: Dysfunctional Performance: The U.S. Voting Machine Debacle and the Machinery of Democracy]

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The Power of Perception

Democrats' continued belief that Bush "stole" the 2000 election contributes to the current climate of mistrust and suspicion around electronic voting machines. It's easy to see not only "Florida" but the entire national scenario of voter disenfranchisement as a very frightening confluence of right wing agendas: the privatization of the national voting system by companies with connections to the right; the institutionalization of governmental trust in a software industry dedicated to secrecy and the continued privatization of digital information; the increased disenfranchisement of African-American voters; and the consolidation of political power in the hands of blatantly partisan election officials and a right-wing court at the expense of democratic process. In a country where only 50.3% of the electorate voted in the last presidential election, any kind of mismanagement or corruption could decide the next president.

As documentary filmmaker and propagandist Michael Moore has made so clear in his last two movies, fear is one of the government's most powerful methods of maintaining control over an increasingly insecure public. When it was recently proposed that the office of Homeland Security needed a provision to postpone elections in the case of a national terror emergency, what governmental agency was the source of this blatantly unconstitutional (and by some interpretations unpatriotic) suggestion? The U.S. Elections Assistance Committee, formed by Bush after "Florida."

Government and private figures estimate that 1-3% of votes in a presidential election are discounted because they register as blank—either because of voter intention or mechanical error (29). That figure has been shown to be as high as 7% for electronic voting machines, and was even higher in predominantly African-American neighborhoods in Florida; in black sections of Jacksonville, one in three ballots did not count in the Presidential election (30).This performance of systematic disenfranchisement is creepy. Just how intentional the dysfunction of the current electronic voting machine system is is a matter of conjecture. What is certain is that the perception of corruption becomes itself an exercise of power. In his recent theatrical presentation/analysis of the Bush Agenda, "Patriot Act" (presented recently at New York Theatre Workshop in New York City), media analyst and NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller aired many of our most pessimistic fears when he asserted that the Bush camp will just refuse to give up the Presidency. They plan to win the 2004 election, he said, "no matter what." Crispin Miller invokes the discussion over the many failures of electronic voting machines as part of his scenario of what "no matter what" might look like.

Bush's performance of sinister authority creates the feeling among some voters that their vote doesn't matter because it will never be counted. Beyond the questions addressed in this article, it is perhaps that perception that is the most powerful tool Bush has to disenfranchise voters through the forces most insidiously destructive to democracy: resignation and apathy. One thing is unquestionably clear: ever since the nightmare of the 2000 Presidential election, citizes groups from across the U.S. have been calling for election reform. That reform, given the proven track record of the new high-tech electronic voting machines, is proving to be a remedy possibly more dangerous than the disease.

Nina Mankin is a writer and scholar living in New York City. She has written about theatre and culture for New York Newsday, American Theatre Magazine, The Boston Pheonix, P.A.J. and other publications. She has a Masters Degree in Performance Studies from NYU where she was the recipient of the Performance Studies Award. As a dramaturg Nina has worked with Tony Kushner, Holly Hughes, Reno and others. Along with Joe Shahadi and Toni Silver of Temporary Industrial Arts, Nina recently developed "Patriot Act," a theatrical examination of the most invasive law ever passed in U.S. history.