The answers to these questions are still forthcoming. Our focus should be first and foremost on ensuring that Internet voting can be a process that is as secure as the current polling-booth method. That done, we can turn to the more philosophical questions of how we vote and what our vote means. In my mind, however, the universality of Internet technology available today has pushed the country through a door that has all but shut behind us; no longer can we afford to disregard the web as a valid social and political arena. Voting in cyberspace is a logical next step for American politics.
Alixandra E. Smith '02, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Kirkland House. Her column appears on alternate Mondays.