> He had one short story in particular where one citizen would be called in front of Multivac and, based on their answers to Multivac's questions, Multivac would (accurately) infer who the winner of the presidential election should be, obviating the need for expensive elections to be run.
Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion but my interpretation of Franchise is that the depicted government is a dictatorship. I would say the the end of the story seems pretty sarcastic:
> Suddenly, Norman Muller felt proud. It was on him now in full strength. He was proud.
> In this imperfect world, the sovereign citizens of the first and greatest Electronic Democracy had, through Norman Muller (through him!) exercised once again its free, untrammeled franchise.
Besides, it's obvious that the process is not transparent, denies its citizens their free will by treating them as statistically predictable objects, and requires an amount of personal data that can only be provided by a surveillance state.
Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion but my interpretation of Franchise is that the depicted government is a dictatorship. I would say the the end of the story seems pretty sarcastic:
> Suddenly, Norman Muller felt proud. It was on him now in full strength. He was proud.
> In this imperfect world, the sovereign citizens of the first and greatest Electronic Democracy had, through Norman Muller (through him!) exercised once again its free, untrammeled franchise.
Besides, it's obvious that the process is not transparent, denies its citizens their free will by treating them as statistically predictable objects, and requires an amount of personal data that can only be provided by a surveillance state.