Froma Harrop / Syndicated columnist
Why Internet voting is bad for democracy

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The vanishing American citizen is a wily character. She'll line up in the pre-dawn hours to score toys at Wal-Mart. He'll pay triple-digit ticket prices to attend the game. Both will insist on giving the slot machines their personal attention. But ask these folks to pick up their big rear ends and go to a polling place, and they disappear into thin air.

If those people won't go out to vote, say civic do-gooders, then bring the vote to them. Let people vote from the comfort of their TV room. The more people who vote, they contend, the stronger the democracy. Making the procedure as simple as choosing a cable channel will go far in reversing the troubling decline in voter participation. And what could be easier than voting over the Internet?

Nothing is easier — for the wired, that is. But isn't voting supposed to be a communal activity? What's next, Thanksgiving dinners conducted via Instant Messenger?

Michigan's Democratic Party will let people vote online in its Feb. 7 presidential caucus. Some Democrats have complained. Permitting use of this technology, they say, will discriminate against people too poor to afford home computers or unable to use them.

"If someone can vote in the warmth of their living room, but a grandmother has to go down four flights of stairs and out into the cold," says presidential candidate Al Sharpton, "that's not an even playing field."

He's right about the playing field. But the bigger concern shouldn't be the digital have-nots but the civic will-nots. Anyone who has spent much time around urban polling places knows that the grandmothers get there. They may come with walkers, oxygen tanks and a neighbor to hold them up. But they come and vote.

Census numbers bear this out. In 2000, 65 percent of Americans 75 years or older said they voted — in contrast to only 32 percent of those ages 18 to 24.

Internet ballots are a great solution, but they have little to do with the problem, which is voter apathy. The important fact about people who don't vote is that they don't want to vote. You can't cure indifference by plunking the ballot on their laps and telling them to pick someone, anyone.

Most of the excitement surrounding the Michigan Democrats' plan to allow online voting comes from college campuses. "If it helps them, that's terrific," said state party chairman Mark Brewer.

Why college kids need special help, however, is a question worth asking. The party will open 576 old-fashioned voting sites on caucus day — so no one need pack an overnight bag to vote in person.

How much interest does Internet voting really drum up? Arizona Democrats were immensely proud that turnout for their 2000 primary, which allowed Internet voting, doubled the previous high. But when the general election rolled around, the percentage of Arizona's voting age population to actually participate was the second-lowest in the country (after Hawaii's). And the state went for the Republican, George Bush.

Letting people vote from home is a bad idea whose time has unfortunately come. In 1998, Oregon's voters approved conducting all elections by mail. Since then, Colorado, California, Washington and other states have started offering a number of polling-place alternatives.

But Internet voting is the worst possible choice for the democracy. For starters, there's the problem of coercion. Voters enjoy total privacy in the traditional voting booth. Who might hover over them as they vote on a home computer — or even do it for them? Then there's the threat of identify theft.

And what about the potential for computer fraud? A Seattle-area company that develops electronic voting technology — VoteHere Inc. — has long insisted it can keep the system secure. Then, as if to debate that point, someone hacked into VoteHere's own computers.

In a perfect world, all citizens of voting age would study the candidates and cast a ballot for their preferences. Voting is already a cinch. Making it totally effortless may boost voter quantity but at the price of undermining voter quality — not to mention respect for representative democracy itself. That's not a good tradeoff.

Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com

Copyright 2004, The Providence Journal Co.