Compromise is a good thing.

Whether you’re a six-year-old fighting over a swing on a school playground or a 60-year-old politician trying to get something accomplished, compromise is necessary.

But there are some instances in which compromise is a bad thing.

Compromising on moral issues? Bad.

Compromising when you know something is wrong? Very bad.

Compromising to the point where the original issue is no longer recognizable? Also bad.

But the latter is just what GSB may do tonight with a bill on electronic voting.

In case you missed last week’s meeting, GSB senators debated until after 11 p.m. about a bill to begin Internet voting in GSB elections. The bill would have allowed students to vote in the annual elections from their personal computers, without ever even having to leave their rooms.

Supporters of the bill believed electronic voting would convince more than just 6 percent of the student body to get out and vote.

But some senators thought electronic voting would be insecure and would allow students to influence other students’ decisions.

Debate in the GSB meeting was heated and lengthy, and senators left the meeting admonished to work out issues in the bill over the week.

But what authors of the bill came up with in the way of compromise leaves the proposal without a point.

Authors of the bill will propose an amendment tonight to limit electronic voting to just GSB-sanctioned stations. Students will be voting electronically, but they’ll still have to get to the GSB-placed computers.

There’s no guarantee that Internet voting as originally called for in the bill would have motivated more students to vote this spring. Voting would have been easier, but voting is already pretty easy as it is.

But without even the attraction of easier voting, electronic voting will have no chance of attracting more students.

Not only that, but the worries of the opposing camp won’t be assuaged with the new amendment, either.

GSB-sanctioned polling computers will probably prevent “block voting” from taking place — or prevent it as well as the current system prevents it.

But there’s still no way to tell whether block voting would be a problem with Internet elections. This experiment of a compromise won’t actually be testing anything.

Electronic voting as the amendment calls for it will fail its original purpose and ignore an actual concern. No wonder original author Rick Cordaro removed his name from the bill.

Compromise like this is not what’s needed on this bill. What’s needed is another attempt at calming the fears of those who think Internet voting is a bad idea.

If that doesn’t work, the bill will fail, and that would be too bad.

But at least we wouldn’t be left with an empty, compromised proposal.