Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century [Paperback]

Bev Harris (Author), Beverly Harris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2004

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!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Riveting...scoops that would have made her [Bev Harris's] career at the New York Times or Washington Post." -- Vanity Fair magazine, April 2004

"Some...call her [Harris] the 'Erin Brockovich of elections.' Her facts check out. -- Salon.com, Feb. 2003

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: Talion Publishing (March 2004)
• ISBN-10: 1890916900
• ISBN-13: 978-1890916909
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #948,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courageous, May 23, 2004

By 

Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century (Paperback)

Voting is a right that has been denied to many throughout U.S. history, but author Bev Harris makes clear in the book "Black Box Voting" that electronic voting machines open up massive new possibilities for mischief that could make past indiscretions seem small by comparison.

On the whole, the evidence collected by Ms. Harris suggests that the machines in use today are unreliable. In fact, the book's appendix details hundreds of documented instances of largely unexplained voting irregularities. However, problems that may at first glance be explained away as merely examples of isolated system malfunctions comprises only part of the story.

Ms. Harris tells us how she aggressively researched the voting machine industry and learned how it works. Far from working solely for the public interest, she found that these privately-owned companies have their own special interests and political agendas in mind when they are not seeking to maximize sales and profits. The author makes clear that these companies have much to gain from placing their own representatives in office, opening up what would appear to be an almost overwhelming temptation to use the technology to engage in fraudulent activities. Indeed, it was interesting to see how many of these corporate roads lead to the state of Texas, individuals who identify themselves as Christian Conservatives, oil industry consultants, and supporters of the Republican Party.

Ms. Harris dedicated a great deal of time and effort researching Diebold, whose questionable business practices and unsecure voting machines have been exposed in the media largely due to her efforts. Her discussion with Diebold programmers and others about the mysterious rob-georgia.zip file that appeared on the company's ftp site just prior to the Georgia election in 2002 is fascinating. Along the way, the author has remained courageous in the face of intimidation by Diebold and others by refusing to back down and to publish her findings so that everyone can see just how flawed these systems really are.

Of course, Ms. Harris discusses the 2000 election debacle in Florida. Explaining that all of the software used in electronic voting machines are supposed to be certified by the state, the author goes on to explain that the loading of an unauthorized card into the Diebold machine that relayed a negative vote for Al Gore "calls into question the competence and integrity of the programmers, the company and the certification process itself".

Ms. Harris concludes with a number of recommendations for correcting this abysmal situation and restoring public confidence in the U.S. voting system. She discusses the industry's efforts to lobby Congress and influence public opinion and suggests ways that readers can become involved in this issue.

A quick read, this book is highly recommended for everyone concerned about how we might restore democracy in the U.S.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly important issue, August 11, 2004

By 

S. G Peer (Glendale, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century (Paperback)

This book does an excellent job of bringing to the public the insecurity of the bulk of the commercial electronic voting machines, and their threat to democracy. We in the computing industry have been pleading for someone to pay attention to this issue for years, and the world's two leading computing professional associations (ACM and IEEE) have both blasted these machines repeatedly. As an engineer since the 1970's, having worked on high security DOD and high reliability NASA projects, I'm appalled by the blemish on our profession that companies like ESS and Diebold are. Critics claim that the book is partisan, but if defending democracy has become a partisan issue, so be it, I won't desert democracy simply because I'm called partisan. And to those who support election fraud when it produces the desired result, shame on you! Thanks to Bev for having the courage to write the book, and thanks to you for reading the book and passing it to a friend when you're done!

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Set the record straight...., April 18, 2004

By 

Eric A. Smith (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century (Paperback)

The "one star" reviews here are from DRE shills hoping to discredit this very frightening -- and bang-on -- expose. Don't listen to them.

This is the one book they hope you never read, and which you absolutely must if we are to keep America alive.

The book has been available for download for several months, and much of Ms. Harris' work was drawn from internal emails from the voting companies themselves; employee emails that reveal, among other lightning bolts, how Diebold "lost" 16,000 Gore votes in the 2000 election.

The e-vote corporations fought for -- and lost -- suppression of Harris's work in a historic Internet battle in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several university students saved the day by refusing to knuckle under to legal pressure.

With nearly half of Congress and virtually every computer programmer that has examined them repeatedly warning that these paperless machines are a huge threat to free elections, Ms. Harris has been a pioneer in exposing how the theft of America's democracy is one push of a button away.

As a journalist with over 20 years' experience, I commend Ms. Harris on her courage, integrity and investigative skills.

Read it, and join the fight to save your country -- while you still can.