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:
“To love someone is to isolate him from the world, wipe out every trace of him, dispossess him of his shadow, drag him into a murderous future. It is to circle around the other like a dead star and absorb him into a black light.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Such as boxed
Their feelings properly, complete to tags
A box for dark men and a box for Other
Would often find the contents had been scrambled.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.”
—Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)