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About this project

I am an independent PR practitioner with a longtime interest in voting machines. With your help I can write a book that chronicles the story of how the reputation of this technology went from perfect solution to alleged conspiracy.

The book I propose would be entirely about the reputation of voting machine technology. Others have written about the merits of the voting machines; I do not propose to address that aspect of the story. I am solely concerned with the reputation meltdown of the machines. When they were first brought to notice, they enjoyed widespread confidence. Now they are seen as insecure at best and the instrument of conspiracy at worst. How did such a thing come about? This article I wrote for the Daily Dog will give funders a sense of my approach.

So far as I am aware, this was the first case of an online campaign directed against a specific technology. I propose to write a detailed book that traces the story from the obscure websites that attacked the machines to when the machines became the subject of late night comedy. It will be necessary to conduct hundreds of interviews with activists, computer scientists, corporate leaders, lawyers, elections officers, reporters, and politicians. I am particularly eager to interview the public relations teams of the companies involved to get their side of the story. What is it like to be on the receiving end of this sort of pressure campaign?

Obviously, this will require a great deal of time; if I write this book I will not be able to accept any additional PR clients. It will be necessary to subscribe to Lexis/Nexis and similar data bases. I also anticipate that I will require a research assistant. It is my ambition to publish the book before the end of October 2009. There are elections this year in Virginia, New Jersey, and Kentucky. An October release would be the best timing for a book such as this.

This book will be aimed at public relations professionals. Robert French, who teaches public relations at Auburn University, has agreed to review the book on his blog infOpinions, so funders can be confident that the book will receive some publicity.

Project location: Washington, DC

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