Although, Thomas Edison is well known for his numerous inventions such as the light bulb. Within his repertoire of designs, some received less sensationalism. The Electrographic Vote-recorder was an invention patented by Thomas Edison. At age twenty-two, Thomas Edison started his career developing methods for the U.S. Congress. As a means of recording votes in a more timely fashion than the time-honored voice vote system, Thomas Edison developed the electrographic vote recorder. According to Science (howstuffworks.com), the vote-recorder was a voting device connected to the operator’s desk. Embedded in metal the name of the legislators were accompanied by one column representing "yes" and another representing "no." As Legislators moved a switch on the device, this would point to either "yes" or "no," sending an electric current to the instrument at the clerk's desk. At the end of each submitted vote, the administrator would place a piece of paper treated with chemicals on top of the metal type and run a metal roller over it. The current would cause the chemicals in the paper to dissolve on the side for the recorded vote. Wheels kept track of the total votes and registered the results. At the time, Congress was not interested in devices that increased the speed of voting. Consequently, the rejection of Edison's vote-recorder classifies it as one of Thomas Edison failures or less famous inventions.
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