The concept is not a new one. First suggested by futurist R. Buckminster Fuller about 50 years ago. I think these people have been watching Star Trek a little too much. And the price would not be too much to pay to save a democracy in distress, he says. Nationally, only about 36 percent of the 186 million Americans eligible to vote cast ballots in November, matching the lowest turnout of the last 50 years.
Many political analysts expect the downward trend to continue.
His organization is trying to legalize telephone voting in Boulder through a city ballot measure in the next election, and it hopes that, by the 1994 election, residents here will be letting their fingers do the voting. Under the nationwide system the group proposes, all registered voters would be given 14- digit voter identification numbers. To help protect against fraud, only one in every 100,000 possible sequences of numbers would be a valid voter identification number. Voters would call a free telephone number from touchtone phones, punch in their identification numbers, then vote on candidates and ballot issues by punching other numbers. It's going to happen, if not in Boulder, then certainly somewhere in the next few years.