Bev Harris is an American writer,
activist
Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...
, and founder of Black Box Voting, a national, nonpartisan elections watchdog group. She helped popularize the term "
black box voting", while authoring a book of that title.
Original investigative work by Harris has been featured in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'',
CNN
Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
,
ABC,
MSNBC
MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...
,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
,
Fox News
The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...
, and
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
, as well as by the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
,
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
, and many other mainstream news outlets.
In 2006, HBO released the documentary ''
Hacking Democracy
''Hacking Democracy'' is a 2006 Emmy nominated documentary film broadcast on HBO and created by producer / directors Russell Michaels and Simon Ardizzone, with producer Robert Carrillo Cohen, and executive producers Sarah Teale, Sian Edwards & Ea ...
'', which follows Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne, director and associate director of Black Box Voting, respectively. ''Hacking Democracy'' was nominated for an
Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...
for Outstanding Long Form Investigative Journalism.
Diebold Investigation
In 2003, she discovered the source code of voting machine manufacturer Diebold Election Systems, which changed its name in 2006 to
Premier Election Solutions.
After examining these files, Harris wrote an article on July 8, 2003, detailing how to bypass passwords and manipulate election results on the Diebold GEMS central tally system. The information in Harris's article was subsequently confirmed by internal memos written by Diebold's own engineers.
Researchers at
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres.
Rice University comp ...
and
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...
also studied the programs she obtained and found security weaknesses that afforded opportunities for abuse. Diebold officials and state election officials disputed the findings of the Rice and Johns Hopkins researchers.
''Hacking Democracy''
An organization founded as a nonprofit by Harris, Black Box Voting, was invited by
Ion Sancho,
Leon County, Florida
Leon County () is a County (United States), county in the Florida Panhandle, Panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. It was named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population w ...
Supervisor of Elections to conduct a series of tests of Diebold's GEMS central tabulator and Diebold's optical scan voting machines. The tests took place February 14, 2005; May 2, 2005; May 26, 2005 and December 13, 2005, and allege to prove that Diebold machines were not secure and could be
hacked and results altered.
Her work to expose security weaknesses in electronic voting systems was assisted by Kathleen Wynne and is featured in an HBO documentary, ''
Hacking Democracy
''Hacking Democracy'' is a 2006 Emmy nominated documentary film broadcast on HBO and created by producer / directors Russell Michaels and Simon Ardizzone, with producer Robert Carrillo Cohen, and executive producers Sarah Teale, Sian Edwards & Ea ...
''. The film follows a series of investigations, many of them captured live on videotape by Kathleen Wynne.
In a public records request, Harris discovered that counterfeit audit records had been provided to Black Box Voting. Harris subsequently found some of the original records in the garbage at a
Volusia County
Volusia County (, ) is a county located in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Florida between the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2020 census, the county was home to 553,543 people, an increase of 11.9% from the 2 ...
warehouse. Florida Fair Elections Coalition founder Susan Pynchon and Broward Election Reform Coalition founder Ellen Brodsky found more original poll tapes in the garbage behind the Volusia County elections office.
Harris, Wynne, and Andy Stephenson audited the originals against those given out by Volusia County in public records requests. Data on several of the poll tapes found in the garbage did not match data on the tapes provided in public records; many key audit items were missing, and unusual errors (such as a date-stamps 16,000 years in the future on one tape) indicated the alterations appeared to be due to alterations in programming the device that produces the poll tapes. Harris, Wynne and ''Hacking Democracy'' producer Russell Michaels, arranged for a series of hacking demonstrations on the "GEMS" central tabulator and also the hacking of memory cards. The finding of the records in the trash, along with the hacks, can be viewed in the HBO documentary ''Hacking Democracy'', which premiered November 2, 2006.
Other investigations
In March 2006, Black Box Voting was contacted by elections official Bruce Funk, from
Emery County, Utah
Emery County is a County (United States), county in east-central Utah, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 9,825. Its county seat is Castle Dale, Utah, Castle Dale, and the largest city is Huntington, Utah, Hu ...
. Black Box Voting again secured the services of
Harri Hursti
Harri Harras Hursti (born 10 July 1968 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish computer programmer and former chairman of the board and co-founder of ROMmon, where he supervised in the development of the world's smallest 2-gigabit traffic analysis p ...
and Dr.
Herbert Hugh Thompson and examined the Diebold TSx touch-screen (DRE) system. Hursti, Thompson, and a member of the Black Box Voting board of directors, Jim March, found flaws which prompted emergency warnings and last minute corrective actions in Pennsylvania, California, and other states.
Harris's investigations into the testing laboratories that examine voting system software were revealed in a hidden camera interview in ''Hacking Democracy''; she also obtained test laboratory reports that showed Ciber Laboratories omitted security testing on the machines.
Harris also identified and broke the story on the criminal records of a number of individuals who owned, programmed, and printed ballots in the elections industry.
Diebold lawsuit
Together with Jim March, Harris filed a whistleblower lawsuit, alleging that Diebold Election Systems had made false claims when selling their system to Alameda County, California. In late 2004, Diebold agreed to pay the state of California $2.6 million to settle the case, and paid approximately $76,000 to Harris, which she donated to the then-nonprofit Black Box Voting organization.
VoteHere investigation
She has been served with four cease and desist notices and in 2004, was interviewed by the
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security tasked with conducting criminal investigations and providing protection to American political leaders, thei ...
Cybercrime Task Force five times in connection with a claim by VoteHere, an electronic voting software company in Bellevue, Washington, that their site had been "hacked", with their source code stolen. In connection with this, Harris received a gag order from a U.S. Attorney in preparation for a federal grand jury investigation. An article by ''
Seattle Weekly
The ''Seattle Weekly'' is an alternative biweekly distributed newspaper in Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded by Darrell Oldham and David Brewster as ''The Weekly.'' Its first issue was published on March 31, 1976, and it becam ...
'' covered this.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Bev
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
American democracy activists
Writers from Washington (state)
Diebold
Activists from Washington (state)