Pandora's Ballot Box

Abstract

In the weeks following the 2000 US Presidential Election, it became clear to many of us that the protracted contest over the Florida electoral votes was replete with science and technology studies (S&TS) themes. Like several nationally televised political spectacles in recent years, the controversy was widely characterized as a 'civics lesson'. It also offered specific S&TS lessons that invited further exploration. The media coverage and court cases drew attention to local contingencies associated with the politico-techniques of voting and vote counting. These contingencies tend to remain hidden when the system of humans and machines seems to function well enough and election results are trusted.' Ordinarily, reports of US election results presume that the number of votes tallied for a specific candidate corresponds to the number of registered voters who cast their ballots in favour of that candidate. Those of us who paid attention to the disputes that filtered through various Local, State, and Federal courts learned that we should not take for granted that a 'vote cast' is automatically translated into a 'vote for' the respective candidate. To paraphrase standard S&TS lingo, the ballot box was both literally and figuratively opened up for detailed inspection. It is also worth noting that this opening was temporary and far from total, as it was circumscribed by legal rulings and political rantings. The themes of partiality and closure, including attributions of partiality and appeals for closure, were also part of the story. Beyond learning that a substantial percentage of votes are consigned to 'error' (roughly 2% nationwide and 3% in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election), the media public learned that a voter's intention to cast a ballot is variably enabled, frustrated, blocked or deflected by particular voting machines, ballot designs, legislation and political machinations. And, no less importantly, they learned that the use of different machineries for inscribing votes in local precincts significantly intersected with economic and demographic divisions, so that margins of error intersected with