Art, Politics and Open Source

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 checks 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....but we can do our parts to find a better way.

I share this here because I feel the Open Source movement and community could well be the 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 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?

The series of video projects I am working on now are not blatantly political but the ideas I am exploring in them have evolved in this context (at least in part). However, the art projects are less concerned with rehashing the problem(s) as much as it is presenting a context for solutions....not by focusing on the symptoms but going to the heart of the matter which really isn't so much about politics as it is the status quo in general. In that paradigm the underlying deficit in social capital - and the personal expression of that reality in the lives of millions of individuals merit attention that can perceive the broader context.

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 Hacking Democracy