Digital Matters - Issue 32

Politicians live by three sets of numbers: the amount of campaign money that they can raise, the most recent polling data that they can find, and the tabulation of opinions as expressed in the mail that they get. Money is important because it's hard to raise -- and it's even harder to run against someone who has more of it. Polling data are significant because going against prevailing public opinion on important issues can cost a politician votes. And the daily mail is particularly consequential because anyone who will take the time to write will probably take the time to vote and, generally speaking, will probably vote in the primaries as well. In some ways, the mail yields the most important data available to politicians -- because it contains the concerns of their most active constituents.

Conservatives used the Internet to force Congress to vote on Bill Clinton's conduct. And every time a Republican representative tried to finesse the issue or stepped forward to say, "Maybe we should just cut a deal and be done with it," conservative constituents hit the keyboard and pushed the "send" button -- and Capitol Hill snapped to attention. The House managers didn't speak for their colleagues so much as for the 35% of Americans who believed that Bill Clinton should be impeached. And those 35% of Americans were heard because the Internet provided them with a megaphone.

That percentage may not seem adequate to get the job done, and indeed it wasn't when the final votes were tallied in the Senate. But 35% was enough to require everyone to stand up and be counted. On the issue of Internet taxation, there are perhaps 60 million voters -- more than half of the electorate -- who believe that the Internet belongs to them. Most of those 60 million believe that the Net should remain a free-trade zone. And that constituency grows daily -- with every new AOL account, every new iMac purchase, every new piece of hardware that connects a user to the Web .

What, exactly, are the numbers? Since the introduction of Netscape Navigator in 1994, the Internet constituency has grown at a dizzying clip. According to the Voter News Service, 25% of 1996 Election Day voters were connected to the Internet. Roughly 40% were online in 1998. And by November 2000, 66% of the electorate is expected to be wired. It took only about one-third of the electorate to force a vote on Bill Clinton's guilt or innocence, so imagine what two-thirds could do to a public-policy initiative on taxing or regulating the Internet.

The tools needed to empower this constituency are already being brought to market. One such tool is Vote.com, a Web site created by Dick Morris. (Morris was chief strategist and adviser to President Clinton during the 1996 election season -- until he was fired for consorting with a prostitute.) The idea behind Vote.com is simple: Every day, the site asks visitors to vote on a particular public policy or political issue. About three months ago, the site asked whether people favored or opposed taxation of Internet commerce. An overwhelming number of respondents opposed the idea.

In most respects, Vote.com is no different from any other unscientific Internet poll. But it does go a step further: After users cast their vote, Vote.com asks them whether they would like to have their opinion passed on to an appropriate government official. If the answer is yes, Vote.com sends an email either to the president or to a voter's representative and senators, depending on the issue. Once a voter answers yes, all of that person's future votes are automatically passed along in that fashion. The morning after I answered yes, I received three "auto responses" from elected officials.

Vote.com is a fairly crude instrument. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to realize that better-funded, more sophisticated operations could overwhelm the electronic inboxes of every member of Congress. Should the commission decide to tax Internet commerce, dozens of new-and-improved versions of Vote.com will pop up to exhort opponents of Internet taxation to send an email to Congress. It's one thing for a representative to get 500 pieces of mail in one day. It's something else for that representative to get 25,000 emails -- all saying the same thing about the same issue.

Congress and the states have the authority to tax Internet transactions -- but they don't have the votes. And that is why every GOP presidential candidate has supported the moratorium on Internet taxation, and why some have even called for extending it indefinitely. These presidential hopefuls know the size of the Internet constituency, and they're well aware of one thing: If they get on the wrong side of those constituents, they risk losing not only the job they seek but also the job they have.