Thursday 14 January 2021

the ayes have it

First installed in January 1973—another very pivotal month for America with the Oil Crisis, the drawdown from Vietnam, Richard Nixon’s second inauguration and the Roe v. Wade decision in the US Supreme Court—we find, via JWZ, that little has changed and the US House of Representatives’ electronic voting system (relatedly) very much preserves its original Star Trek: TOS aesthetic (see also). Forty-seven stations are spread throughout the chamber—they’re not on the backs of all seats and members can cast they vote at any one of them, using an ID card they carry.