Hacking Democracy

That's the title of an HBO documentary I stumbled last (Friday) night. It is an incredible story about how the Black Box voting system, powered primarily by boxes from Diebold Corporation, have completely screwed up voting results in the US, including electing Bush twice when he probably lost both times.

It is a chilling tale and the most remarkable part of it is that many people are aware of the problem but nothing is being done about it.

The story began in 2002 when Bev Harris, a Seattle writer, grandmother and wife asked local officials why they had purchased touch screen machines to record Seattle votes. Their answers created more questions in Harris' mind and stubbornly she began to pursue it because she felt she was being bamboozled by officialdom.

Trolling through the Diebold site one day while doing research, she discovered the proprietary code for Diebold's Election System program, one of the most widely used in America.

That was a huge break and the story from that point on left me shaking my head in disbelief at the reaction of officials, notably Howard Dean, who looked like a good natured buffoon when she showed him how easy an election could be reversed, with no traces left behind of any tampering.

Check it out at http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/synopsis.html

You can also check out Black Box voting at http://beta.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=50217113530999297