The Voting Booth Project

Curator, 2004, Parsons School of Design
For The Voting Booth Project, Chee invited 50 artists, architects and designers to contribute to a 2004 exhibition created in response to the voting booth failures of the Bush v. Gore election four years earlier. In that election, many observed that design had failed the electorate because the so-called Votomatic machines used in Florida were primitive and illegible, leading to a large number of votes not counted. The infamous “hanging chad” phenomena resulted from these manual punch-card machines.  

Each contributor received an actual Votomatic voting booth purchased on Ebay: the metal cases held the booth’s spindly legs and were loaded with loose chad. Each contributor transformed the object and returned a work of art commenting on democracy’s ideals.