Dysfunctional Performance: The U.S. Voting Machine Debacle and the Machinery of Democracy. Hemispheric Institute; Mankin, Nina performance performance studies, estudios sobre performance, estudios de performance journal, revista United States, Estados Unidos ENG: Nothing illustrates democracy like voting. Consider the image of ex-slaves lining up to cast ballots in the Reconstruction South, or that of an Afghani woman in her burka voting for the first time in a country where only a short while before she was forbidden even to leave her house. If, as linguist J. L. Austin first articulated, encompassed in certian speech-acts that he called \'performative\' are entire histories of compulsory behavior (the examples he famously gives are the \'I do\' solemnizing a wedding and the \'I christen\' naming a ship) then voting is an essentially performative civic-act. Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, New York University 2004-10-01 DCMI: Text Hemi: Text application/pdf/gif http://hemi.es.its.nyu.edu/journal/1_1/mankin_print.pdf eng http://hemi.nyu.edu/rights.html public