Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century - Softcover

Harris, Bev; Harris, Beverly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1890916900 ISBN 13: 9781890916909

Publisher: Talion Publishing, 2004

Synopsis

Author Bev Harris is the 52-year old grandma who found 40,000 secret voting machine files on the Web, which have now been studied by computer scientists all over the world. "Black Box Voting" is the book that resulted from her investigations into the voting industry.

What she learned was that modern-day voting systems are run by private for-profit corporations, rely on a few cronies for oversight, using a certification system so fundamentally flawed that it allows machines to miscount and lose votes, with hidden back doors that enable "end runs" around the voting system. Find out why your vote might not count -- and what to do about it!

About this title

From the Publisher:

This book started out as a simple look at ES&S and other voting machine companies and their curious ties to elected officials, foreign nationals, and political parties. Within a few months it morphed into an expose of bad software, criminal activity, and fraudulent use of taxpayer money.

Bev Harris and David Allen were a very unlikely "Woodward & Bernstein", she being a 53 year-old grandmother and he a 43 year-old comic publisher. Initially, David was simply playing the role of publisher. But as Bev's investigation became more technical, he was able to draw upon his 18 years as a computer systems tech and engineer to help Bev unravel the technical aspects of the story. Not that she needed much help. She was a quick study on techical issues and soon mastered many of the intricacies of the topic.

David would later wind up sitting in on a secret phone conference between the voting machine industry and the lobbying firm seeking to get itself hired.

Bev Harris has attacked this story with the tenacity of a terrier and refused to back away from the truth despite threats of legal attack from Diebold and ES&S. In one year the story went from an obscure topic in computer forums to a international discussion.

About the Author:

Harris is a writer and literary publicist who became curious about electronic voting in October 2002. She spent over 2000 hours investigating the voting industry, interviewing county election officials, voting industry executives, and even the programmers who write the secret code that controls the systems. Her work has now been covered on ABC, CNN, CNBC, FOX, CBS, and the New York Times, and was the feature article for the April 2004 issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

About this edition

• Publisher: Talion Publishing
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1890916900
• ISBN 13: 9781890916909
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 268