Stephen Hodecker: Support Article 20 in Meredith to hand count paper ballots

To The Daily Sun,

Many of us grew up in the infancy of the information age. We experienced the transition from tubes to semiconductors. We remember one of the first Texas Instrument calculators introduced in 1972. It cost $135, representing nearly a week's wages.

From the VIC 20, the Commodore 64, Windows and the first cell phones —technology was fascinating and the pace of advancement truly breathtaking. Now "smartphones" are ubiquitous and Artificial Intelligence is creating much of our content. Our modern cell phone has turned into little more than a sophisticated surveillance device that allows us to make phone calls as it watches our every move. We have all had the experience of speaking to a friend or family member about a certain subject or possible purchase and the next thing we know, those very things decorate the sides of our current news feed or article.

As for AI, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern reality from sophisticated fabrication as we peruse our increasingly suspect news feeds.

With the assistance of this technology, Big Tech, Wall Street and Big Government have transmogrified into an ever-present sort of "Technocracy." The primary objective of this Technocracy is to mine our personal data and habits to better control our behavior.

As seemly benign and convenient as the current counting machine is, let us take a stand on this issue while we can, before a system far more sophisticated and potentially malevolent is mandated for our use by state or federal dictate — then putting our election process truly out of our control.

It is against this backdrop of an ever-present Orwellian Big Brother that I urge you to vote "yes" on Article 20 Wednesday at the Meredith Town Meeting returning the voting process to hand-counted paper ballots.

Stephen Hodecker

Meredith