Site Bars Black Box Voting Head

December 7, 2004 2:32 PM

Site Bars Black Box Voting Head "A politically progressive website at the forefront of discussions about electronic-voting machines and election irregularities is barring Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris from posting to its site. In a written statement, site administrators said that they barred Bev Harris because her postings on the site 'have made positive discussion of verified voting increasingly difficult.' .... 'We no longer believe that it is productive to allow her to use DU as a platform to promote herself while simultaneously trashing us, our moderators and others who have been previously supportive of her cause,' site administrators wrote in the statement."
posted by ericb (23 comments total)

When learning about the site administrators' decision to ban one of its participants, I recall Clay Shirky's talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference (Santa Clara, CA on April 24, 2003): "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy: Persistent patterns in long-lived online groups."
posted by ericb at 2:37 PM on December 7, 2004

just like poor troutfishing
posted by matteo at 2:51 PM on December 7, 2004

Saddam Hussein was pretty good at splitting his enemies against themselves, too.
posted by Busithoth at 3:37 PM on December 7, 2004

"She said she did not threaten to sue Democratic Underground but did complain that some participants in the forums were improperly using the phrase "Clean up Crew," which she said is a trademarked phrase of her Black Box Voting organization."

Um. WTF. This is some kind of satire, right?
posted by undule at 4:03 PM on December 7, 2004

was trout banned from this site and metafilter? Or neither?
posted by chaz at 4:05 PM on December 7, 2004

I respect blackboxvoting's effort, but I also think Keith Olbermann is not far off the mark when he accuses Harris of grandstanding. It's hard to take the blackboxvoting.org front page seriously when so much of it comes off as sensationalist.
posted by Galvatron at 4:14 PM on December 7, 2004

These black boxes, they have heads that vote?
posted by kindall at 4:20 PM on December 7, 2004

FWIW, here are Bev Harris' rebuttals to Keith Olbermann and to the DU moderators.
posted by designbot at 5:03 PM on December 7, 2004

Bev was on CBC radio a while ago, and was the snarkiest interview guest I've ever heard. The interviewer asked her where she was, and Bev said she'd rather not say exactly where, saying that she liked to "keep ahead of them" or something like that. The interviewer incredulously said "So you won't say where you are?"

Bev replied, very snarkily that they had talked about it before the interview, and no, she wouldn't say, and could they move along please.

While I think she had reasonable grounds to be a bit curt, if indeed they had been discussing it before the show, that seems like a childish response; she certainly could have kept her cool. And I've never heard the interviewee raise the pre-show discussions -- it's kind of like pointing out the man behind the curtain of radio interviews.
posted by InfinitePigeons at 5:08 PM on December 7, 2004

Most users on DU acknowledge that she has greatly helped the effort to battle election fraud and she has stated that DU members have greatly helped the cause as well. For a dedicated new comer working long hours on this issue it was a big blow. I wasted a day researching the problem, not knowing where to put my effort. Election fraud is a much bigger issue than these personalities involved here and I am sad that this dispute is now getting as much attention as the urgent efforts at hand. A private agreement between both parties to put this aside for a month would have been the professional thing to do. I don't discount the gravity of their dispute. I just wish that they would have consulted a mediator and both agreed to not interfere with each others efforts for now. Also, Keith is yet another issue. Three days ago I recommended to them an open chat exchange (just them posting) so that we could all see it for ourselves. neither have replied.
posted by 0of1 at 5:22 PM on December 7, 2004

Thank you, ericb, for linking to the most interesting and informative essay I've read online in a good long while.
posted by eustacescrubb at 5:45 PM on December 7, 2004

How much is Karl Rove paying Bev Harris to discredit herself and her cause?
posted by wendell at 5:47 PM on December 7, 2004

The Shirky essay is the one I was referring to. Didn't make that clear.
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:06 PM on December 7, 2004

eustacescrubb - you're welcome.
posted by ericb at 6:18 PM on December 7, 2004

These black boxes, they have heads that vote?

Thank you kindall, you've made my day. That reminds me of 'Iraqi head seeks arms.'
posted by dwordle at 6:52 PM on December 7, 2004

How big of a ass do you have to be to get banned from DU?

That's like banning someone from fark for being immature
posted by Mick at 7:43 PM on December 7, 2004

Considering how she completely blew off her publisher after imagining that David Allen, her publisher, was trying to bilk her out of money, I'm not surprised. Accusing someone of deception when there clearly was none isn't a way to make or keep friends.

Look, these complaints have been legion. See Votescam for an older critique. The problem is that all of these people either are nuts or end up looking like paranoid freaks. I don't know if it's the conspiracy or what, but the anti-e-voting people need to rally behind people like David Dill and Rebecca Mercuri instead of folks like Harris.
posted by calwatch at 8:06 PM on December 7, 2004

Bev Harris is out of her fucking mind and is discrediting legitimate efforts to investigate voting fraud in the presidential election.
posted by Slagman at 9:14 PM on December 7, 2004

That's why us Republicans who secretly stole the election with our magical machines are now secretly funding Harris. MUHAHAHA
posted by drscroogemcduck at 9:21 PM on December 7, 2004

was trout banned from this site and metafilter? Or neither?

I was wondering this too. Trout banned from Meta, I mean. I'm new here. Is there some place where bannings are announced?
posted by Sangermaine at 2:01 AM on December 8, 2004

Once again... anyone who thinks the election wasn't stolen is an idiot... PERIOD.
posted by GrooveJedi at 1:46 AM on December 9, 2004

GrooveJedi. I don't believe the election was stolen. I believe the voice of America spoke and it was the voice of a child frightened by the unknown and crying for the hug of an adult to make it all better. Sorry if that makes me an idiot in your mind. I'd look closer to home if I were you.

There certainly was dodginess throughout the whole election cycle - the sheer number of links on MeFi alone was evidence of this. The fact is (and you may not like it) America voted for Daddy this time around and Bush was the one who captured the lost-little-child vote.
posted by longbaugh at 5:40 AM on December 9, 2004

Regardless of Harris' paranoia, she has a major PR problem. When you claim to be fighting for the people and the story continually ends up being about you, it doesn't always mean that they're trying to change the subject -- sometimes, you change the subject by the way you conduct yourself.

(In contrast, for example, F9/11 stands on its own next to Mike Moore -- surely he's part of the story, but we as a society have gained more than late night comedy fat jokes from his work).
posted by VulcanMike at 1:55 PM on December 9, 2004