"Man of the Year" - Art Imitates Life

SPOILER WARNING!!! -- Plot element revealed

Tonight, my family went to see the new Robin Williams movie, "Man of the Year." As some of you may know, an electronic voting machine company plays a major role in the plot of the movie. The Delacroy corporation has won the contract to provide electronic voting machines nation-wide. A few weeks before the presidential election, one of the Delacroy programmers decides to run tests on the system software, and discovers that every time she runs a test the same candidate always wins, no matter how many votes she enters for the other candidate. This plays a pivotal role in Williams' character being elected president.

The problem that the programmer discovers in the Delacroy machine immediately brought to mind the problem that was discovered by Ed Felten, Ari Feldman and Alex Halderman. You can read more about Ed's research in his blog. It almost makes you wonder if the writers might have been involved in the research as well. :-)

As for the rest of the movie, my family found it to be quite entertaining. If you like Robin Williams' style of comedy (you know, off-the-wall-stream-of-conciousness), you'll probably enjoy this movie. There was quite a bit of out-loud laughter coming from the audience. So, if you want to laugh and worry about our next election at the same time, I highly recommend this movie.


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