You know the drill. As election day approaches, glossy pamphlets clog your mailbox. Annoying prerecorded calls jam your answering machine. Nasty attack ads disturb your prime-time TV viewing. You are bombarded at every turn, and you take it all in, with only one responsibility in mind: remember to vote.
That's the way it used to be for Tom and Mary Bashore, a retired printer and an accounting assistant from Ephrata, Pa. But at some point in January, they stopped watching and started participating. Mary went on their home computer and found Barack Obama's website , where the couple created a...