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California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone

In the run-up to the 2026 election in California, candidate Eric Swalwell believes that people should be able to vote using their phones:

This was described fifty years ago by John Brunner in his epochal novel The Shockwave Rider, calling it electronic government:

From 0700 local until 1900 every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions, accompanied by a spoken version for the benefit of the illiterate. Most would be in English, but some would be in Spanish, some in Amerind languages, some in Chinese ... the proportions being based on the latest continental census. After each repetition would follow a pause, during which any adult could punch into the phone his or her code, followed by a "yes" or "no."

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