Web sites that target voters boost registration, research

WASHINGTON -- Registering to vote and finding out where candidates stand on issues is a mouse click away, thanks to the emergence of Web sites that cater to voters.

Several sites target a voting bloc many consider apathetic -- the MTV generation. More than half of Americans age 18 to 24 were not registered to vote in 2000 compared with just one of three voters 45 to 64, the Census Bureau said.

"Online voter registration has been around for a long time. But it's really at this time when it's come into its own," said Jay Strell, spokesman for Rock The Vote. That Web site is designed especially for the 18-30 crowd. "This is really becoming the wave of the future for young people."

Sites that offer voter information have been around since the World Wide Web became popular in the mid-1990s. But the Web sites have become more sophisticated and ingrained in popular culture, experts said.

Even Rolling Stone magazine has a link to Declare Yourself, a voter registration and information site.

Many of the sites are from nonprofit, nonpartisan groups that run on donations, volunteers, corporate sponsors and grants. Several people who set up the Web sites say they did so because they wanted to give Americans an easy way to track their lawmakers' performance and judge candidates.

Hubert Hubik, a fortysomething political exile from the former Czechoslovakia, used to share an e-mail political newsletter with friends. But in 1995, when the Internet became more widespread, Hubik converted his newsletter into the Voter Information Services site.

"I came here as a refugee when Czechoslovakia was still run by communists," he said.

"That's part of the reason I got into this. I had the feeling that really people didn't take full advantage of this privilege that not everybody in the world has," he said.

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