But of real concern, unlike resurging interest in electoral college reform, is the impetus the Bush-Gore Stalemate has given the technocrat's new crusade, Internet voting . Our vote should be the terminus, not the origin of public deliberation and discourse. Or at least that's the theory. These ideals about voting matter even if our practice betrays them. Alterations of our common symbols and ideals should not be ill-attended.
Internet voting is a private, household act.
Fully-adopted Internet voting alters the symbolic import of the vote in a representative democracy. To go to a local polling site to vote remains a public act freighted with civic symbolism. We vote publicly because democracy is about the responsibility and freedom to lead and live a common life together. Internet voting is objectionable in the first place because it deepens dangerous trends that I would see meliorated. That is naive at best.