Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Brian Mooney writes a front-page story on the increasing demand that e-voting machines leave a voter-verifiable paper trail. In the course of providing Balanced & Professional Coverage, Brian writes:

''There are valid concerns on all sides," said Dan Seligson, editor of electionline.org, a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy group that tracks election reform efforts. ''Whether democracy is truly threatened by paperless voting machines, I'm not sure that's the case. Nor am I sure it's the case that these are 100 percent reliable. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle."

I wish the truth were in some middle ground, but in this case, we are going to have people who are psychologically and politically motivated to find fault with the system, so having technology that is not 100% trustworthy and verifiable is 100% guaranteed to erode our trust in the leaders who emerge from the process. Any unverifiable election that is at all close will be suspect. Any election that surprises us will be claimed to have been rigged. The frayed fabric of good will will rip. And we will lose the joy of upsets.

Scott Kirsner writes about Bose's shock-absorbing system that is said to make cars ride as smooth as a hovercraft on fresh blacktop. "What on earth is a speaker company doing trying to reinvent the way auto suspension systems work?," Scott asks. He answers by pointing to the fact that Bose is privately held and can support the diverse interests of its founder, Amar Bose.

But I believe (= am guessing) that there's an additional point of connection. Could the Bose auto-suspension system use the same principles as its noise-cancelling headphones?