“The voting Rights Act of 1965 guaranteed African-Americans the right to vote, but it did not guarantee the right to have their votes counted. And in one of seven cases they aren’t.” Greg Pallast, The Nation, April 29th 2004

In July 2001 Tokion Magazine decided to do a Florida issue. I pitched the idea of going there and photographing the architecture of democratic collapse. Basically I wanted to see for myself the where of Bush’s swindle. Jeff Chang a writer, colleague and friend had been there in the days of the election count and had all these stories of corruption, racism and deceit and I thought well I’ll take Jeff’s notes and see if I can illustrate them.

When I arrived in Miami I called the local Democratic party offices and informed them of my project to see if they could help. I was informed by the party official that “It’s all new here now and we didn’t keep records of any of that stuff”. With the help of Bekka Melino (my trusty navigator) I set off to make these photos. Here’s Jeff notes with a few additions.

Days after the 2000 presidential election, as vote counts and recounts and legal disputes left the U.S. without a clear leader, Jonathan Moyo, the “campaign” chief for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, remarked, “We could not get away with something like that in Zimbabwe without the threat of sanctions…Perhaps now we have reached a time when they can learn a lot from us. Maybe Africans and others should send observers to help Americans with their democracy.” Wags, pundits, even authors like Wole Soyinka and Salman Rushdie echoed his sentiments throughout a Fourth World collapsing in belly laughter. Russian president Vladimir Putin offered to send election monitors to Florida. Months later, with George W. Bush installed by high court fiat, no major election reform has been passed and thousands of documented incidents of voting irregularities remain unexamined.