Product Details

• Actors: Bev Harris, Andy Stephenson, Harri Hursti, Ion Sancho, Mark Radke
• Directors: Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Docurama
• DVD Release Date: March 27, 2007
• Run Time: 81 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000MKXF28
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #55,989 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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• For more information about "Hacking Democracy" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Hacking Democracy tells the tale of a modern-day David and Goliath. On one side stand three corporations in the voting machine business, led by Diebold. On the other stands Bev Harris, a concerned citizen from Seattle. When touch-screen voting machines are installed in her community, she decides to do some research. Harris discovers that black boxes aren't exactly fool-proof—-far from it. As technology experts attest, the code is vulnerable to manipulation. Worse yet, after-the-fact changes are undetectable. So, Harris forms a grass-roots organization and proceeds to dig deeper. If that means dumpster-diving, so be it. Starting in 2004, Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels accompany Harris around the country to document her mission. Over the course of three years, they find several troubling instances of corporate malfeasance and computer malfunction. Foremost among consequences, her findings lead the State of California to file criminal charges against Diebold. Since most American votes are counted by computer, this isn't a trivial matter. Like This Film is Not Yet Rated, which reveals the inner workings of the MPAA, Hacking Democracy sheds light on a secretive process that affects all Americans--even those unfortunates who can't be bothered to vote. After all, they still have to live with the results, accurate or otherwise. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

The disturbingly shocking HBO documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY bravely tangles with our nation's ills at the heart of democracy. The film the Diebold corporation doesn't want you to see, this revelatory profile follows a tenacious grandmother from Seattle, Bev Harris, and her band of extraordinary citizen-activists as they set out to ask one simple question: How does America count its votes? From Florida and California to Ohio and Washington State, filmmakers Simon Ardizzone, Robert Cohens, and Russell Michaels starkly reveal a rotten system riddled with inaccuracy, incompetent election officials, and electronic voting machines that can be programmed to steal elections. Equipped only with a powerful sense of righteous outrage, the activists take on voting machine manufacturer Diebold, exposing unsettling security holes in the company's equipment. They even go dumpster diving at a county election official's office in Florida, uncovering incendiary evidence of miscounted votes.

HACKING DEMOCRACY takes a nonpartisan, clear-eyed look at the secrecy, cronyism, and incompetence of elections in present-day America as it captures a citizen's movement intent on taking back elections--and democracy itself. "It is hard to imagine...a documentary this season that is more important to the civic life of the nation--let alone one that is so compelling and ultimately moving" (Baltimore Sun).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important film, June 8, 2007

By	P. Mann (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Was George W. Bush ever legitimately elected president? The answer, according to many, is no. Whether they are correct, the fact that there is so much distrust in elections is a serious problem, even if the elections were completely legitimate. That legitimacy and the perception of illegitimacy are at the heart of "Hacking Democracy" and represent the consuming passion of Bev Harris, the center of the film and author of Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century. Harris, as the film shows, is obsessed with voting rights, especially when it comes to computer voting.

This issue should be non-partisan. Americans should be concerned about the accuracy of the vote regardless of their party affiliation. Unfortunately, the film, perhaps for reasons of recent history, seems to portray Democrats as the victims of Republicans' machinations. In particular, the film suggests strongly that President George W. Bush's two elections were the result of voter[...], not of actual votes, first in Florida and then in New Mexico and Ohio. I suspect that today's highly polarized zeitgeist might lead those who lean right to dismiss the film while those who lean left to endorse it uncritically. If I'm right, then it's a shame since the issue really is vital to the country.

Bev Harris, from the film's depiction, is a concerned citizen who stumbled across a mistake when she was doing an Internet search. Concerned about Diebold, which makes, programs, and sells electronic voting machines, she happened to find an ftp site that the company had neglected to remove from the Web. She downloaded over dozens of hours all sorts of files, including code to earlier versions of the voting programs. She allowed experts to look at the code, and they found serious flaws.

However, Harris did more than just download codes. She went through the trash of various organizations, including a local government in Florida, finding all sorts of things, including (the film would have us believe) evidence of illegality in Florida. She also oversaw the hacking of a Diebold data card in what the film claims is proof that machines can be hacked. (The scene, it must be admitted, is impressive. Eight people vote in a pseudo-election, and the machine reports the results incorrectly. A 6-2 vote turns into a 7-1 vote the other way.)

"Hacking Democracy" is a gripping film, one that seems to strive for neutrality. There is one scene with a Republican candidate who noticed and videotaped an electronic malfunction. There is also a passing reference Republican objections to the voting machines in some states. Nonetheless, the focus on the two elections of 2000 and 2004 leaves the film with an apparent, if not actual, partisan bias. Even so, the film is more than compelling. It is frightening. Whether President Bush was duly elected once, twice, or never is beyond the point of the film, at least for me. The fact is that many parts of the country have entrusted elections to machines that are not sufficiently trustworthy, and more and more, the mechanisms of vote counting are hidden from nearly everyone. All we know is that people vote, the votes go into the proverbial black box, and then a result comes out.

This is not to say that the machines are inaccurate. The film stops short of actually saying that any particular election was "stolen," but the point that an election COULD be stolen is made abundantly clear. Therein lies a serious problem.

"Hacking Democracy" is at its weakest when it goes off on tangents that question the problems in Ohio and Florida. This is not to say that there were no problems; of course there were. Any human enterprise on the scale of a national election is going to have problems. However, "Hacking Democracy" seems to fail to appreciate this point. Thus, a mention of intolerably long lines at some Ohio precincts is present apparently to add information to the evidence against the Ohio election. But this parenthetical mention is not entirely fair; it is, as presented, more innuendo than substantive fact.

"Hacking Democracy" is, by contrast, at its strongest when it focuses on Harris, her fellow crusaders, and their struggles against a huge corporation. At the heart of the movie is a David versus Goliath story about a few individuals who take on a large, apparently corrupt corporation and, amazingly, come out ahead quite a few times. This human element seems to be missing from the film, which seems instead to want to rely on Harris's grandmotherly qualities to engender the viewer's sympathy.

Still, "Hacking Democracy" is a vitally important film. Its message, however imperfect the delivery, is one that should be heard. Even if the charges in the film are incorrect (and I understand that Diebold vigorously denies most of them), it is vital that the country protect faith in the system, and the film offers a convincing argument that transparency is the most important step.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hacking Democracy , May 13, 2007

By	Wesley Lounsbury - See all my reviews

I stumbled upon this documentary when it was first aired on HBO, I was spellbound by the amount of evidence this film produces which PROVES, that our election process is so corrupt that those in power can choose whomever pleases THEIR INTERESTS. Add to this mountain of proof the testimony of Clinton Curtis in Ohio 2004. In his testimony the panel asks him "are there programs that can be secretly used to fix elections?" answer, "Yes", "How do you know this to be the case?", answer "Because in October of 2000 I wrote a prototype for Congressman Tom Finney at the company I worked for in Florida that did just that." "And when you say did just that, it could rig an election?" answer, "It would flip the vote 51-49". This story needs to be the headline of every paper in the United States, if our elections are not free of corruption then how can we expect ANY LEVEL of Government to be working in the best interests of the American people. Investigate 911.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone must see this, it is very enlightening, April 8, 2007

By	K B (KS) - See all my reviews

This movie is a must see for every American. You need to see how secetive the companies are that make the electronic voting machines and how easily they are hacked. This is the most informative movie you will ever see about the machines we entrust with our democracy. And most telling is when they hack a machine in minutes and change the outcome of a mock election. You must see this!