Hacking Democracy
by Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Andy Stephenson, Bev Harris, Harri Hursti, Ion Sancho, Mark RadkeDirector: Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone
Brand: New Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-03-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Docurama
Product features:
- 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 Flo
Movie Reviews of Hacking Democracy
Movie Review: MUST SEE: then ~~ Hand Count Paper Ballots in Public View and Post them at Precinct, Election Night
Summary: 5 Stars
I first heard Bev Harris ( the chief Star, by "acclamation," of this film, and called by Time Magazine the "Godmother" of voting reform ) on AM radio, a national broadcast, at the start of 2004. And that revelatory and long interview (4 hours) she gave on the overwhelming evidence of electronic fraud in our elections persuaded me to devote much of my time during the last three years to election fraud investigation and commentaries (such as this review of a GREAT film). That also launched my own involvement as journalist and radio guest in this fight to restore our democracy, including invitations to discuss this at length on broadcasts on the East Coast, and many postings at the think tanks that have sprung up to address this incredibly dangerous threat to the very basis of our public life and government.
It has since been proven, as if there were ever really any question, that electronic voting is impossible to protect from hackers, especially those who have the most access to the machines: voting officials and voting machine vendors and their employees. Add to this the eerie and vast presence of the CIA, NSA, FBI and many other covert agencies behind the scenes in the counting of our vote, which can be easily documented beyond a "shadow" of a doubt, and you have a full blown catastrophe. Such is what many of us believe has happened. We currently have no way of knowing what has occured in the casting and counting of electronic votes. I made my views public several years ago that I also believed optical scan machines, which have been counting our votes since the early 1980s, are just as impossible to secure, and as easy to rig. Unbelievably easy. In fact, they seemed designed to rig. The clear conclusion of all this is that we really have no way of knowing what the results of our elections have been for over a quarter of a century at least. The greatest payoff in this truly outstanding and crucially important film ( as in "must see for every American," if not all other world citizens as well ) was what they saved for last, the best: that Harri Hursti performed a hack of an optical scan machine at the film's end under Florida Voting Supervisor Ion Sancho's supervision ( previously interviewed by Bill Moyers on PBS "NOW" at the beginning of August 2004 ) and complete rig of a vote, he reversed the results of winner and loser in the most easy and quite shocking way, in just a few moments ~~ before, as Bev Harris has since written, "Bip, bip, bip, we could even get our camera equipment set up." It was done that easily.
People and my fellow American viewers: watch this film, and then help us return to a procedure of voting that is dependent upon the people of this country, its citizens, and not "experts." Return to hand counting paper ballots, and then posting the results in plain view of the public at the precinct level, on the doors or walls of the polls themselves. And don't close the polls until the results are counted, re-counted to match, and posted on the premises, the same night. If poll workers are not available, they can be easily drafted, randomly, and paid for the day's work. The most important day's work, the most important job, in the country. Obviously a job that is currently more "important," certainly more relevant, than the presidency itself....
Computers have many benefits to offer us: counting our votes clandestinely is NOT one of them.
Over 75% of the world's democracies cast and count votes on hard copy, paper. And they make sure the counts match. WE, on the other hand, while lecturing all the world on the supremacy of our democracy, only "audit" TWO PER CENT of our votes, if that. Ever. What does that smell like, to you. This movie investigates all of these shocking gaps in security, and leaves you to decide whether or not we're getting our votes heisted electronically (and/or otherwise) by parties known or unknown..... And it leaves a simple conclusion: vote on hard copy, paper, and count in public, with full disclosure. Most importantly, at the precinct itself, posting them for public view, so that the chain of custody of the votes can NOT be hacked, somewhere higher up the chain. Only posting vote totals for all to see in the local neighborhood, polls, will establish what really has taken place, before any opportunities to alter vote totals, elsewhere. This is the key priority of them all, and something that cannot be achieved on machines: totally de-centralizing and disclosing vote results and totals at their point of origin, not elsewhere with opportunities for theft and fraud, but ONLY in the locale of each poll. Anyplace else is an open door for fraud......
If anyone tells you this is somehow outlandish, beware of a vested interest. Hand counting paper ballots is how Canada does it. Germany does it. In fact, MOST countries do it. Dan Rather even has reported that we are now outsourcing our voting "technology" to the Philippines with no thought of security or quality control, a staggering fiasco. And guess what, since 1999: THEY now do it: on paper.
Is this what has happened to our democracy? The Filipinos themselves were targets of such electronic fraud, and their case in one election went to their Supreme Court. Result? They now hand count paper ballots.
When our very gravely, greatly rigged 2000 election, with memory cards stolen in Florida (one was substituted that gave Gore a MINUS 16,000 votes, in Volusia County, documented, and just enough to put his "well-known" rival over the top) went to OUR Supreme Court (Bush vs. Gore), the Supremes, unlike their better behaved counterparts in the Philippines, awarded an unverified and wholly illegally processed election to our current illegal "pResident."
Whatever party you belong to, or don't, we must ALL understand that it is unacceptable to select presidents in such an obscure manner. What's sauce for the goose, the gander too, and next time it may be not be the other guy's candidate, but yours....
WE the PEOPLE are constitutionally empowered to decide that, not criminals and illegally ensconced Supreme Court judges ( if the "presidents" that appointed them were illegally sworn in, then so were these court appointees, am I right? ).
It is nothing less than shadow anarchy, where these decisions are made by people whose faces we will never see and identify. It is an occult process, voting by machine, without citizen oversight, and MUST be stopped.
Watch this movie, and then tell me if you can come up with any other, or better, solution than to hand count, and recount, paper ballots marked with indelible ink, and posted in plain view of a watchful public.
I'm all ears while waiting for any and all answers. If you come to the conclusion I have, then just perhaps your children, and their children's children's kids, just for starters, will thank you......
Meanwhile, your House of Representatives in DC is contemplating a bill known as HR 811 that will put machines in to stay, and wipe out what remains, truly, of our voting rights. That's because powerful lobbies such as Microsoft and Diebold and ES&S, and other such criminal interests, are banging on their doors and rewriting it, and trying to write computerized voting and utterly secret counting into permanent law. Watch the film, and let your representatives know your outrage and what a Zogby Poll discovered last August, 2006: that over 92% of Americans polled said they wanted a system of voting where citizens could see and verify themselves the results of OUR elections...... One of the highest results ever recorded in a major American poll.
The clock is ticking on our freedoms and their very survival. Find out what's happening, really happening, by watching this priceless documentary, and then please, for all our sakes, shout it out.
We, too, will thank you.
Summary of Hacking Democracy
This follows tenacious seattle grandmother bev harris & her band of extra-ordinary citizen-activists as they set out to ask one simple question: how does america count its votes? equipped only with a powerful sense of righteous outrage they take on the voting machine industry exposing alarming security holes. Studio: New Video Group Release Date: 03/27/2007Hacking 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
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