E-conomy / Paul Andrews
Online voting wins over many in Michigan

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As energized and well-attended as Washington's Democratic caucuses were, one demographic was noticeably absent.

"Median age was disappointingly high," a friend put it. "Where are the angry baristas-who-are-really-rock-musicians? Gone to decaf every one, I suspect."

Before breaking into a chorus of "When will they ever learn?" Democratic Party organizers here might draw a lesson or two from a Northern Tier relative's experience. In Michigan, getting out the youth vote wasn't so much a problem, if early indications hold true.

At my North Seattle precinct, the average age was around 50. A few 20-somethings showed up, but the index of the day was aging boomer. Granted, my neighborhood is dominated by such types, but it includes a fair number of renters, students and young couples as well.

One possible explanation for their absence is that, transient as they are, younger voters who live in my neighborhood may not be registered there. More likely, they just had other things to do. The few that I later asked had a variety of other commitments — including (for some) Saturday jobs.

Michigan apparently solved the youth vote with a simple mechanism: online voting.

For five weeks before Michigan's caucuses, held the same day as Washington's, voters could log onto the Internet and cast their ballots electronically. According to the Michigan Democratic Party, more than 46,000 voters did so — 28 percent of the 163,000 total cast.

Online voting was popular for predictable reasons. Michigan's harsh weather keeps a number of people away from caucuses. But for youth, online voting is far more convenient than going to a school or church and sitting for a couple of hours while "seniors" try to make up their minds (yeah, I was young once).

Online makes sense for another reason: Candidates increasingly turning to the campaigning power of the Internet can make it a one-click move to enable supporters to cast their vote. An urgent e-mail to a supporter might include a button to "Vote now!"

Still in its infancy, online voting is hardly a perfect solution. It excludes the fascinating jockeying that can go on in a precinct caucus as undecided voters listen to pleas from candidates' supporters — and others switch their votes — after the first round of totals is announced. For a sense of democracy in action, you can't beat a caucus.
 
More significant, online voting's reliability is still far from proved. With identity theft, software holes and security attacks an everyday occurrence, the Web hardly seems an ideal place to test the democratic process.

Indeed, the Defense Department has scrapped plans to use online voting for overseas military in the November election.

But security isn't the long suit of the primary process anyway. I was surprised at caucuses to find a sign-in sheet instead of a list of registered voters to check against. There were no identity checks; caucus organizers trusted participants to be who they said they were and to know which precinct they inhabited.

When I inquired about the lack of verification, I was told it's never been a problem in the past, when a dozen or so folks would show up in someone's living room. But with hundreds of people attending, security should be a higher priority.

Then again, this is a primary we're talking about — not a winner-take-all general election with binding results for four years. Any attempt at fraud would have to be on a state-by-state basis, far more laborious and open to rectification than a one-time-only, nationwide vote.

In Michigan, party organizers say they will check Internet ballots against registered voters for duplicates or fraud. If that process were to turn up widespread corruption, caucuses could be reheld or another vote taken (or online results factored out).

As of this writing, the Michigan experience is still being evaluated. Whatever it determines, online voting seems inevitable, once secure measures are put into place.

Paul Andrews is a freelance technology writer and co-author of "Gates." He can be reached at pandrews@seattletimes.com.

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