I've mentioned in the past the number of people Googling to the site to find information about felony offender registries and the official Tennesse (a misspelling of Tennessee) state site.
Since then, the new common search is for the Tennesse Felony offender site. I wont even get into how sad it is that people who live in a state don't know how to spell that state's name, but just pass along the official website for FOIL Tennessee's Felony Offender Information Lookup.
Over the weekend the democratic party in Michigan used an eVoting system for its primary. According to their reports, things went off without a hitch. In response to reports (reported here below), about the Pentagon scrapping their eVoting initiative, a DNC spokseman said "I don't know the specifics of their system, but our system was secure." Right.
One third of all votes cast in the primary were collected electronically. Kerry won overall, but later this week they'll be releasing a report breaking down votes by method and candidate. I'll keep you posted.
The National Governors Association has created an archive of historical information about state governor's going back to colonial times. Or at least it will. Currently the archive contains information on all current governors and historical data on governors from Alabama to Iowa. Additional information is being added alphabetically, so if you are waiting to learn about the military career of Wyoming's third governor, you might have a bit of a wait.
I took an Electronic Records Management course last semester, and part of my personal research was to take a look at the RM policies of government agencies. My research was in no way comprehensive, but one of the best resources I found was the Georia Secretary of State's Records Management Services website.
They've posted complete RM retention schedules, information on legislation that guides RM policies, and standards and guides for microforms and imaging systems, among other things. The information on the websites covers both state and local level RM and is worth a look, if you are into that kind of thing.
Cash-strapped state and local governments are discovering what millions of eBay aficionados already know: You can sell almost anything on the Internet.
. (link via beSpacific). Many of the agencies say they are netting three times as much as they previously had from their local auctions.
I see nothing wrong with this, other than that authenticity might be a problem. E-Bay's reputation management system goes along way to solve that. Still, shouldn't a forward thinking legislator read an article like this and see the possibility of something like an "auction.gov", where federal, state, and local governments across the country can place items for sale in a single location?
California, probably the most forward thinking state in terms of eVoting initiatives, are working out the kinks of their current system. The Seretary of State's office has recently released an Report from their Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force.
Nothing especially earth shattering in the report, though the directive that all touch screen voting systems must include an accessible voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) is a step in the right direction, and should qualm many fears about the possibility for funny business with eVoting.
Check out the Digital Government Document's Clearinghouse, a project of the American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table.
The goal of the project is to collect information to facilitate cooperation and partnerships between libraries for digitization projects. They hope to do so by providing a centralized database of digital resources for local, state, federal, and international government documents that are currently planned, in progress, or already completed.
You can add a project (not necessarily your project) to the database, or search it by keyword (though I'm certain they'll have more sophisticated retreival of the information once the project is completed). From what I can tell, there are already in excess of 150 digitization initiatives already entered into the database.
I've been doing a little reading about the use of top level domains (TLDs) by government agencies. Some use .com, others .org, and others .gov, and that makes it difficult to a) find information you need, and b) judge the authenticity of information once you find it. The last I've read of the ICANN rules, .gov domains were meant for federal agencies only, but the format should, technically, be something along the line of "whatever.gov.us", which is how other nations configure their systems.
I ran across a list of all the official state websites (via the eGovernance Institute. About half the states use a format of "state.two state abbreviation.us" - for example "www.state.al.us" for Alabama. It is great to see the beginings of uniformity with the URL naming conventions. Unfortunately, the rest of the state sites use any variety of formats - including some that incoprorate marketing speak - like TennesseAnytime.org and YourOklhaoma.com.
Personally, I'd like to see something along the lines of "TwoLetterStateAbbreviation.gov.us" for states, "city.TwoLetterStateAbbreviation.gov.us" for city and county governments, and "agency.fed.gov.us" for national government. But maybe that's just me.
The Ohio House of Representative may pass bill that would limit government agencies ability to provide free information on their websites. The bill, HB 145, had been voted down last year, but was attached to this year's budget bill without any debate.
The bill is based on non-compete laws, the idea that government agencies should not compete without private enterprise. If the bill were to pass information provided by at least two private corporations, would not be also legal to post on any government websites. This article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer explains it more.
A silly example - if you can wal into a rest stop along any Interstate in Ohio and pick up a free roadmap, provided by the state, despite the fact that if you'd walked into the gas station only a few steps away, you'd have to pay for a similar map. But if you wanted to download an Ohio map online, you couldn't because Mapquest and Expedia already provide that service.
This really punctuates the continuing mind-set of some legislators that the Internet is somehow outside the scope of traditional government services, rather than what it really is, just an extension of those services in a new form. Citizens are legally entitled to free government information. Yet, somehow when that information is provided online, in a more readibly available manner, it is subject to different rules.
(links via (beSpacific)
Does your Congressman have a website? Look for your Representative or Senator.
I didn't count, but it looks like all the Senators and most, if not all, of the Representatives have their own websites. It is interesting that, while all the congressmen are hosted within the Senate and House website, each is designed and maintained seperately, and some are pretty awful. It seems like it would be more efficient to provide a template (or a choice from a number of templates), and a content management system. Kind of like Blogger here.
This would certainly make it easier (and cheaper) to develop and maintain each Senate/Rep site. And though most users wouldn't need to visit the sites for any Senators or Representative other than their own, an arguement can definitely be made that a uniform template would make site navigation much simpler.