Isaac Asimov

In a future where scientific research is controlled by the government, Professor of History Arnold Potterley seeks access to the chronoscope, a device that allows images of the past to be viewed, in order to study ancient Carthage, but his request is denied. Frustrated, he persuades the young physicist Jonas Foster to investigate Neutrinics, the scientific basis of chronoscopy. Foster discovers a more efficient method for building chronoscopes and constructs one, but reveals that it can observe only up to one hundred and twenty-five years into the past. When Potterley’s wife wishes to use the device to see her deceased daughter, Potterley destroys it. He then informs on Foster to the authorities in order to prevent the dissemination of the discovery; however, Foster’s uncle has already sent the plans to multiple publishers. The head of Chronoscopy then reveals the devastating truth: the chronoscope can observe not only the dead past but also the immediate present, so its widespread use would mean the absolute end of human privacy.

In the year 2008, presidential elections in the United States are no longer conducted through popular vote. Instead, a supercomputer called Multivac selects one representative citizen to determine the outcome of all elections. That year, the chosen individual is Norman Muller, an ordinary man living in Bloomington, Indiana, with his family. After receiving an official visit from a government agent notifying him of his selection as Voter of the Year, Norman is placed under surveillance and taken to a facility connected to Multivac, where he answers a series of seemingly trivial questions while his physiological reactions are recorded. Once the process is complete, he is released without being informed of the election results. Though initially anxious and reluctant, by the end, he feels proud to have served as the means through which the national “vote” was exercised in a fully technologized democracy.