Black box voting signifies voting on voting machines which do not disclose how they operate such as with closed source or proprietary operations. The term, as described by Dr. Arnold Urken of Stephens Institute of Technology, comes from the technical jargon use of the term black box, a device or system or object when it is viewed primarily in terms of its input and output characteristics. Dr. Urken's group at Stevens Institute was one of the first independent testing authorities for voting machines.
The term was coined by David Allen, publisher, technical consultant and co-writer to author and activist Bev Harris, who popularized the term in her book with that title and runs the BlackBoxVoting.org website. Allen's formal definition is found on page 4 of the original edition of the book: "Any voting system in which the mechanisms for recording and/or tabulating the vote are hidden from the voter, and/or the mechanism lacks a tangible record of the vote cast."
Read more about Black Box Voting: About Black Box Voting Systems
Famous quotes containing the words black, box and/or voting:
“Invention flags, his brain goes muddy,
And black despair succeeds brown study.”
—William Congreve (1670–1729)
“We are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features:
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you’ll find in jet,
T’other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within;
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)