Black Box Voting in Seattle Weekly
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0410/040310_news_blackbox.php
March 10 - 16, 2004
Black Box Backlash
Bev Harris of Renton created a firestorm with her national Internet campaign
against electronic voting. Now she’s trying to persuade people in the real
world that their democracy is on the line.
by George Howland Jr.
photo (Rick Dahms)
Bev Harris at home in Renton: “I’ve never seen such a clueless bunch of
people,” she says of election officials.
America’s leading critic of electronic voting lives on a cul-de-sac in the
blue-collar suburb of Renton. Bev Harris drives a gray Dodge Caravan with a
bumper sticker that says, “Keep honking, I’m reloading.” Last year, several
things broke in her home- the furnace, a sink, and a toilet-and she didn’t
have the money to get them fixed right away. In fact, the sink and toilet are
still broken.
At 53, Harris worries about being overweight, and she can’t find a hairdresser
she’s happy with. In recent years she’s made her living as a literary
publicist, hawking such books as Odyssey of the Soul by Hugh Harmon and Pamela
Chilton, which is about channeling spirits, and Two Codes for Murder, a
true-crime story by Dorothea Fuller Smith. A year and half ago, she admits, “I
thought voting was boring.”
Clearly, Harris’ feelings about voting have changed a lot in the past 18
months. Voting has become Harris’ passion and vocation. Voting issues consume
her life, even pushing her to work around the clock at times.
Since September 2002, Harris has battled a U.S. senator, large corporations,
and election officials across the country in her effort to ensure our votes
are counted fairly and accurately. At first, she focused on the problems with
computer voting. Since then, the name of her Web site (www.blackboxvoting.org)
and her book devoted to the subject-Black Box Voting-have become shorthand for
concerns about computers and elections. Moreover, her astounding discoveries
on the subject have resulted in damning research by distinguished
computer-science professors and numerous articles in major newspapers across
the country. Secretaries of state, including Republican Sam Reed of Washington
and Democrat Kevin Shelley of California, have responded by proposing key
changes in how we will cast our ballots in the future.
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