While votes go down the tubes

The average American will flush a toilet approximately 140,000 times in his or her lifetime. That stat comes up in a Sacramento Bee story on new regulations on water use in toilets– apparently everyone from greens to plumbers to the governor is happy about the new regs, and the advancements in toilet technology that make the regs practical. Of course, we’re not as advanced as the Japanese when it comes to high tech in the bathroom, but Californians may flush the next gen porcelain with pride.

It’s a shame that the high tech in California’s voting booths isn’t as reliable.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen said yesterday that “Electronic voting systems used throughout California still aren’t good enough to be trusted with the state’s elections,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Worse, “she admitted having doubts as to whether the electronic voting systems will ever meet the standards she believes are needed in California.”

Feel free to use this juxtaposition of technological triumph and failure to craft your own metaphors and/or pithy observations about the state of our democracy.

Tags: Debra Bowen, electronic voting, regulations, Secretary of State, technology, toilets, vote security