Herman Bos open source guerilla

watstemtmijnraad.nl (what does my city council vote)

Now this is something quite cool: http://www.watstemtmijnraad.nl

It actually gives insight in whats going on in the city council, at least the topics they vote on and the results of each vote. Cool thing is that Groningen (where I live) is part of the pilot, so the topics are a bit closer to home. Besides seeing the things they vote for in the council you can also see what each council member actually voted. Enables you to judge that bastard you voted on last election.

I must say I am a bit dissappointed by most of the "votes" they do, it looks more then common that all council members vote the same. Gives the impression the votes are more of a formality then that they actually matter.

I think this project is absolutely tax euro's well spend and I hope they will do this with more government bodies. Who knows the "government" might actually become transparent one day. Another step they could take is publishing upcoming votes (which would stimulate involvement from people outside cityhall before the vote is already passed).

Apparently we already had this for the parlement on http://www.politix.nl.