The United States has put astronauts on the Moon, mapped the human genome, built self-driving cars, and even figured out how to sell tacos wrapped in Dorito shells — a culinary engineering feat worthy of its own Smithsonian wing. Yet somehow, in the year 2025, the federal government still relies on a 19th-century robot arm to sign the President’s paperwork like he’s home with the flu and missed homeroom.
Welcome to the autopen: a machine so old, so stubborn, and so unnecessarily ceremonial that it has survived a century of newer, smarter, safer technology. Ten presidents later, it continues scribbling signatures while the rest of the world has moved on to digital signatures, retinal scans, and authentication tools that don’t require mechanical elbows.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PEN THAT WON’T DIE The autopen was invented in the 1800s — making it older than the lightbulb, the bicycle chain, and most modern hygiene practices. For decades it quietly signed letters, autographs, and correspondence for busy public figures who needed their name on something but not that badly.
It hit political stardom in the 1960s when President John F. Kennedy popularized its use. Congress didn’t pay much attention until 2011, when the autopen was used to sign a Patriot Act extension from France, triggering dramatic headlines across cable news: “Did a robot just sign a law?”
Yes. Yes it did.
After several hours of pearl-clutching and legal analysis, Congress declared the autopen perfectly constitutional, as long as the President authorized it.
WHY THE AUTOPEN CAUSES SO MUCH DRAMA Every few years, the autopen re-enters the national spotlight like an aging celebrity who refuses to retire. The pattern is predictable: 1. The President is traveling. 2. Something urgent needs signing.
3. Staff activates the autopen like booting up a dial-up modem from 1997.
4. Half the country panics. 5. The other half rolls its eyes. The debate always comes down to the same question: Is leadership valid if a machine signs the President’s name while he’s in another time zone?
Legally: yes. Logically: absolutely not.
MEANWHILE… THE REST OF THE COUNTRY USES DOCUSIGN Here’s the part that feels like pure satire.
Every American interacts with secure digital signatures daily.
Mortgages? DocuSign. Contracts? DocuSign. Insurance paperwork? Docu-Sign.
Your kid’s permission slip for a field trip? DocuSign at 7:14 a.m. while standing in line at Starbucks.
But when it comes to the Oval Office, the federal government still insists on a mechanical writing arm built before electric toasters existed. Instead of handing the President an iPad like a normal adult, official procedure still involves calling Washington and essentially saying: “Start the robot pen. The nation waits.”
Somewhere in D.C., a metal arm whirs to life, draws a perfect signature, and everyone pretends this is not deeply embarrassing for a technologically advanced superpower.
THE REAL QUESTION ISN’T LEGAL — IT’S LOGICAL Why is this still happening?
• Nostalgia?
• Bureaucratic inertia?
• A forgotten regulation from the 1970s no one wants to re-read?
• Fear that a digital signature might cause the President to accidentally approve a farm subsidy and a birthday card at the same time?
Whatever the reason, the autopen has clung to relevance in the same way fax machines and overhead projectors once did: quietly, inexplicably, and against all odds.
TIME TO RETIRE THE ROBOT
The autopen served its purpose in the era when telegraphs and manual typewriters were cutting- edge tools. It deserves a museum display, a plaque, and maybe a respectful nod from history enthusiasts.
But modern governance deserves modern tools. If secure digital signatures are trusted for legal contracts, medical documents, financial transactions, and international business deals, they can certainly be trusted for something as basic as signing a routine piece of legislation while the President is on a plane.
Because this isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a common-sense one.
And at some point, a technologically advanced nation should probably stop relying on a contraption that looks like something Benjamin Franklin would have used to prank Thomas Jefferson.
America is long overdue to put the autopen out to pasture — before it becomes the only piece of government technology still functioning reliably.
