Massachusetts takes pride in liberal politics and technological prowess. But when it comes to government transparency and using technology to connect citizens with government, Beacon Hill has nothing to be proud of.
The state has had terrible difficulty getting its new Heath Care Connector website working, despite years of experience operating an online health insurance exchange, but that’s a topic for another day.
Putting legislative bills and vote tallies online is a far simpler enterprise, so it’s hard to explain how the state Legislature has failed so miserably, especially as compared to other states.
Through its Open States project, the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for open government, recently put the legislative websites of all 50 states to the test. It evaluated them on completeness, timeliness, ease of access, machine readability, standards and permanence of records, then compiled the scores and gave each state a grade. Continue>>>
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