Art, Politics and Alternatives to Protest Art

[Yvette Dubel]

I know this is primarily an issue related to the U.S. but as the "elected leader" has an impact on international policy/relations I am sharing this here. This connects directly to the issue of social capital I have mentioned in my conversations with Anders and others so on that basis as well, I feel this may be of some interest to members here.

I have long been an advocate for end user led innovation, especially in IT. Currently private vendors and a select group of insiders are the only ones privy to the inner workings of voter tabulation software, both its processes and disconcerting loopholes.

Recently I have been pondering connections between our failed check and balances in U.S. political arena. I generally don't get into politics here but because we have only traveled further down this road I feel I have an obligation to at least put some questions and information forward. It is hard for me to believe that Americans don't care, and it seems that those outside the States may be completely unaware of what is happening.

I feel the Open Source movement and community could well be key. The open source standards stand to help restore credibility to our political process by working with it to develop a better solution that people can openly participate in and comment on.

Also, with my interest in social capital this has been a primary instance that I have been paying attention to for a number of years. For several years, I have asserted that this decline in social capital would have economic consequences and I feel the market crash is an indicator of this.

Cultural Fusion has emerged from my interest in finding an alternative to Protest Art because as an artist we have an responsibility/choice to comment on the times we live in as we see/experience them.....and even better, Cultural Fusion intends to be part of solutions. Obviously, I like to keep things as positive and proactive as possible and this is no exception.

Key questions I have about the process are:

Did the Gonzales firings in the Dept. of Justice thwart investigations into voter fraud or irregularities?

Why did Kerry concede the election when he knew that not doing so would have supported checks and balances working to investigate questionable results?

Why are the people shut out of the process of selecting voting machines and operating software?

Given that these issues have gone largely unaddressed what is the point of the Presidential campaign where no one pays attention to such a fundamental usurping of political credibility?

Will ignoring this problem yield results similar to what we have seen on Wall Street?

Key questions I have in relation to the potential of Open Source as a solution:

Can this approach give us a review panel that is not invested in political partisanship?

How can the Open Source community be convened and partnered with the county elections boards?

How can such a movement take shape from the bottom up?

What are the benefits and downside of Open Source software for voter tabulation?


AND what does that mean for you?

For up to the minute info on this issue see Black Box Voting
If you have not seen it already, please watch and share this video (which you can watch online) Hacking Democracy