AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
I am interested in two aspects of voting: first, in the performative / ritualistic aspects, how it provides a minimal amount of participation, how it brings the country together into a group decision process. It's a ritual whose product is not just decisions, but legitimation of itself and the institutions it is part of. That fascinates me for some reason. For me, voting is something like my equally dubious participation in religious ritual; I act despite my doubts and am fascinated by the fact that my lack of belief doesn't matter than much, the ritual has a power of its own. (see Politics as Ritual )
Religious rituals like prayer have the interesting property that one of the participants is imaginary or at least, not physically present. The ritual's purpose is to conjure the presence.