The Sunlight Foundation recruited citizen journalists to evaluate Congressional websites on three criteria:
- Access to basic information on what our elected officials do in Congress (the bills they sponsor, the committees they serve on)
- information from or access to any of the legally-required disclosures they have to file (on personal finances or junkets they take)
- Any additional information that furthers transparency (their daily schedule, lists of earmarks they’ve asked for or gotten).
The results are in — and a quick comparison of my native state of Georgia with my current home of Washington shows that being in a tech-savvy locale does not necessarily translate to thinking of us voters when it comes to a Congressional website. Ugh. Ugly.
Quibble, if you like, with the choice of measurements and “passing” scores — this was a great test of distributed citizen action.
