THE VOTING BOOTH PROJECT: WMD
Fig. 1 – Weapon of mass destruction.
The infamous Votomatic voting machine – instrumental in the 2000 state of Florida election debacle – was reimagined in The Voting Booth Project just before the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Votomatic machines, discarded by the state of Florida, were bought on eBay by Andre Balazs and in partnership with curator Chee Pearlman and Paul Goldberger, transformed by an invited group of artists, designers and architects. Content of the exhibition was auctioned to benefit Declare Yourself, a national nonpartisan campaign dedicated to empowering young voters.
Fig. 2 – The portable Votomatic voting machine.
Fig. 3 – Votomatic components.
Fig. 4 – The confusing graphic layout of the punch card butterfly ballot exacerbated the failure of the 2000 vote.
Fig. 5 – Post election inspection of uncounted ballots to identify hanging chads.
Fig. 6 – Briefing slide from U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s November 10, 2002 presentation to the United Nations that incorrectly identifies WMD storage sites to build a case for the invasion of Iraq.
Fig. 7 – President G.W. Bush announces the start of war on Iraq in a televised March 19, 2003 Oval Office address based on inaccurate evidence of WMDs.
Fig. 8 – The Voting Booth Project invitation.
Fig. 9 – The Voting Booth Project exhibition catalogue.
Fig. 10 – The Voting Booth Project catalogue with WMD (above) and Stefan Sagmeister Inc. ‘How Long Will it Take?’ (below).
Figs. 11, 12 and 13 – WMD.
Fig. 14 – The Voting Booth Project participants.
LOCATION:
New York, USA
YEAR:
2004
CLIENT:
Parsons School of Design
PROJECT TEAM:
Lindy Roy with Ezra Ardelino, Heidi Werner
RELATED PROJECTS:
Times Capsule, Swatch
EXHIBITIONS:
Parsons School of Design
Publications:
REFERENCES:
Ref. 2 - How to categorize inconclusive Votamatic ballots.
Ref. 3 - U.S. Presidential seal.