window smashing is direct action only to the extent that people are not going to representatives(tm) to complain for them.
gardening could be direct action, depending on circumstances.
voting is not direct action in any way ever.
to quote my girl voltairine in a paper on exactly the questions you're both asking and alluding to:
"Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct action."
http://praxeology.net/VC-DA.htm
kind of crimethinc-y, hunh?
edited to make "any way" two words, instead of one.