Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Search cinema listings

Browse cinemas A-Z

Search 20,000 reviews

 

Hacking Democracy (2006)

Director: Simon Adizzone, Russell Michaels

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Touch Screen Voting Machines, Independent Testing Authorities, Optical Scanning Machines, Memory Cards with Executable Programme Software… This compelling HBO documentary investigation into the vulnerability to error, manipulation or untraceable vote rigging of America’s new generation of electronic voting systems – coming soon to a polling booth near you! – involves enough jargon to make the ‘hanging’ and ‘pregnant’ chad rumpus of 2000 seem quite quaint. The central Erin Brockovich-like campaigner here is comforting grandma Bev Harris, a literary agent who co-founded advocacy group Black Box Voting in 2001, concerned by a Florida County voting mechanism that registered 16,000 negative votes for Al Gore in the previous year’s Presidential election. ‘Hacking Democracy’ follows her group’s endeavours to prise open the secrecy surrounding the private ‘vendors’ of the equipment, garnering machine code and passwords from the internet, obtaining signed ‘voter tapes’ from pan-American garbage heists, employing security hackers and enlisting Congressmen and Senators in their efforts to expose this threat to democracy. As a movie, it may be structurally unsophisticated, but the questions it raises are fundamental.

Author: Wally Hammond 2007-04-17 12:12:20

Time Out London Issue 1913: April 18-24 2007


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Get 2 for 1 pizza and cinema tickets with Orange Click Here

Cast & crew

Director: Simon Adizzone, Russell Michaels

Producer: Simon Adizzone, Russell Michaels, Robert Carrillo Cohen

Genre(s): Documentaries

Duration: 82 mins

UK Release: Apr 20 2007




Top Stories

Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade

Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade

Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this

Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'

Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'

Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life

Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones

Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones

Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation

On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'

On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'

Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie

Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'

Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'

Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him

Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?

Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?

How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains

Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'

Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'

We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon

A gateway to all things 'New Moon'

A gateway to all things 'New Moon'

In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.

The films that deserve a TV spin-off

The films that deserve a TV spin-off

With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations

Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam

Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam

In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations