Between the voter and the candidate stands the machine. The voting machine, that is. In a presidential race where every vote counts, how those votes are getting counted is the subject of increasing public scrutiny.

In a free public forum titled, "Representation, Democracy and Electoral Machinery: Four Years After the Florida Vote," three experts in the political and social sciences will discuss a variety of issues surrounding voting technology on Thursday, Oct. 28, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Kroch Library, Level 2B on the Cornell University campus.

Guest speakers and their topics of discussion include: Walter Mebane, Cornell professor of government, "Failing to Count All the Votes"; Michael Lynch, Cornell professor of Science and Technology Studies (STS), "Administrative Objectivity in Elections"; and Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard professor of science and public policy, "A Measured Democracy? Voters and Voter Intent in America;" Stephen Hilgartner, Cornell associate professor of STS will moderate.

The forum marks the arrival of the Voting Technology Archive to the Cornell library. Funded through the National Science Foundation, the archive is the result of a collaborative project between the Cornell Department of STS and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The collection documents the technological aspects of the contested presidential vote in 2000, with special emphasis on the Florida recount. It includes documents, interviews, audio and video recordings and artifacts donated by major government and research institutions, as well as media sources that played a significant role in the reporting of the election. Among the artifacts is a Palm Beach voting machine used in the 2000 Election, complete with the infamous butterfly ballot and hanging chads. The machine will be on display during the forum.

The Voting Technology Archive is designed to facilitate in-depth scholarly work in a wide range of disciplines, including political science, history, law and science and technology studies. Scholars, now and in the future, will be able use the collection not only to examine the linked political, epistemological, mechanical and ethical aspects of U.S. voting systems, but also to explore how Americans imagined their representative democracy at the turn of the 21st century. A final collection effort is supplementing the archive with technical material on the current electronic and Internet voting debate.

"Before the 2000 election, few Americans gave much thought to voting technology or wondered whether their vote would be properly counted," Hilgartner said. "That is no longer true. There is a new sense that our democracy is perhaps more fragile than we believed it to be. The archive is aimed at providing resources for scholars who want to study the technological aspects of democracy and people's changing perceptions of them."