VoteStream CEO Michael Thaddeus unveiled his company's latest innovation today: a smart ballot box that uses machine learning to automatically filter out what he calls "low-quality votes" from election results.
The $28 million system, branded as "DemocracyOptimize™," analyzes voter behavior patterns and assigns each ballot a "civic engagement score" before deciding whether to count it. Votes are processed through a blockchain network powered exclusively by laptops mining cryptocurrency in San Francisco Blue Bottle Coffee locations.
"Some votes just don't add value to the democratic discourse," Thaddeus explained during a rooftop product launch, where servers circulated with kombucha flights and microgreens. "Our AI can detect these low-effort votes and quietly archive them, streamlining democracy for the digital age."
The system automatically approves votes from anyone who has founded at least three failed startups and gives significant weight to voters who use "paradigm shift" or "synergy" in their social media bios. Cryptocurrency investments and ownership of Allbirds shoes or Peloton bikes are also factored in as "positive civic engagement indicators."
VoteStream's algorithm reportedly discards votes from Android users and anyone who hasn't updated their LinkedIn profile within 30 days. The company's new "democracy concierge" service offers premium consulting to help voters boost their civic engagement scores through regular donations to tech-focused Political Action Committees.
Users can now trade their voting rights on VoteStream's new "electoral NFT marketplace," though the company assigns negative points to anyone who has ever expressed skepticism about Web3 or questioned social media's impact on society.
When pressed about the legality of selectively counting votes, VoteStream's head of public policy, Jennifer Walsh, emphasized that the system is "disrupting outdated electoral norms" and suggested that traditional "one person, one vote" thinking reflects an "anti-innovation mindset."
"Democracy is ripe for disruption," said Elevation Partners investor Marcus Roth, who led VoteStream's Series C round. "The electoral process hasn't had a proper UX overhaul since 1776."
Beta testing in a small New England town revealed that the system filtered out 73% of votes from residents over 65, citing "sub-optimal engagement metrics" and "failure to maintain required minimum followers on X."
VoteStream plans to roll out the smart ballot boxes nationwide by 2025, with a premium "Democracy Pro" tier that automatically doubles the weight of votes from users who complete a mandatory 12-week coding bootcamp.
