A Precursor To Online Voting?

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 11) -- In what could be a precursor to online voting, Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) has launched an Internet-based petition drive aimed at building support for congressional term limits.

By visiting Ashcroft's Term Limits Home Page on the World Wide Web, you can signal your support or opposition, find out where other senators stand and write down their own comments about the issue. You can also send e-mail to a separate Ashcroft address.

From the page's design, there's no confusion about where Ashcroft stands on the issue. To vote in support of term limits, you click on a section of text that's in large, red letters. To oppose term limits, you have to scroll further down the page and find that option -- in tiny type.

"The truth of the matter is, people are engaged on a wide variety of issues," Ashcroft, a first-term Republican, told the Associated Press. "We have the opportunity to invite the participation of citizens."

On April 22, the Senate is scheduled to begin considering a proposed constitutional amendment that, if subsequently ratified by the states, would limit terms to 12 consecutive years in the House and Senate. A person could, however, serve 12 years in each chamber.

Ashcroft said winning the necessary support of two-thirds of the Senate will be difficult, even if there is an outpouring on the Web in support. The House last year failed to pass a term limits amendment by 60 votes and a Senate test vote later found only 45 senators in favor.

Ashcroft has been a pioneer among senators in the use of computers and the Internet. To start the online petition, Ashcroft had to obtain special Rules Committee permission, since there are few controls on how the Internet can be used in Congress.

Many members of the House and Senate have Web pages, though, with information on themselves, recent votes and e-mail addresses.

After demonstrating the web page at a news conference this week, Ashcroft sent an e-mail message to his Senate colleagues informing them of its existence and asking for their support.

A Legislative Success Among Disappointments -- Apr. 9, 1996

A Precursor To Online Voting?

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