Thomas A. Edison

In 1869, when Edison was just 22 years old, he got his first patent for a telegraphic vote-recording machine for the legislature. Each legislator would move a switch on Edison's machine that would record his vote on a particular bill.
When a business partner brought the invention to Washington D.C., this is what Congress had to say about it:
The chairman of the committee, unimpressed with the speed with which the instrument could record votes, told him that "if there is any invention on earth that we don't want down here, that is it." The slow pace of roll call voting in Congress and other legislatures enabled members to filibuster legislation or convince others to change their votes. Edison's vote recorder was never used.