'We'll take care of the counting*': A cultural, rhetorical and critical analysis of electronic voting technology

Throughout this study I will argue that voting is an act of communication and a potently symbolic cultural practice. Voting machines are one tool we currently use to vote, a technological artifact that some consider neutral or ambivalent and others consider dangerous and controlling. As a result, the development and use of electronic voting technology forms a symbolic site of struggle among different groups attempting to establish the legitimacy and authority of their preferred narratives regarding how that technology should be designed and used. As with any struggle, there are dominant and subordinate players. This particular cultural setting is postmodern; our world is increasingly destabilized and filled with the mutually neutralizing discourses of claim and counterclaim. In this study, I will explore related cultural narratives using three distinct analytic foci---cultural, rhetorical and critical---that provide insight into the means by which elite and subordinate groups construct, maintain and transform their interests, as well as exploring popular narratives about technology that establish its role in society.;*Attributed to Representative Peter King, Republican, New York, summer 2003. The full statement reads, "It is already over. The election's over. We won. When King was subsequently asked how he knew Bush would win, he answered, "It is all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting." [King later said he was kidding, ( Harper's Magazine, August 2005, p. 46.)].