Welcome to TheLetterDepot.com and this very special section. Designed to provide Political Website Review Forum, this section contain writings and information about a variety of Political/Parliamentary things, sometimes at length, and sometimes in bits and pieces.

 

To many, this will be called a “blog,”   but to me as a political professional who is interested in governmental philosophy, their structures and actions, I am not really “fond of the B” word … so I’ll call this section a Forum and hope that you will participate in its growth and development.

 

Entitled the Political Website Review Forum, this Forum will foster the search, review and analysis of legislative bodies, their internal and external operations and actions and of course, what they produce – legislation. The focus will be on their governmental websites, the information they deliver and how the website helps to involve and inform their constituents.

 

To do so, we’ll cover a variety of subjects and hope to provide insights that foster discussions revolving around the following questions and topics:

• Who are the Parliament’s movers and shakers:
• How does the respective Parliament operate?
• Does the Parliament have a functional, updated website?
• How easy it is to find and use information contained on the website?
• How complete is the website’s information?
• Does the website post legislation, complete with an analysis, committee assignments, public notices, a list of who supports and opposes the measure and open hearings?
• Does the site provide you with an active, updated list of all Members of the Parliament, including the district they represent, their contact information (especially an email address) and office locations?
• Does the site allow you to subscribe to legislation and/or committee agenda’s and actions?
• Are legislative publications placed online for easy access and viewing, and if so, what formats are used and why?
• Can voters view the website in multiple languages?
• Does the website make it easy for voters to participate in the legislative process?
• Can voters attend online zoom type hearings?

 

For example, most western countries have designed their websites so that voters can:

• Easily find Legislators and helps to foster communications between Legislators and constituents;
• View legislation, amendments, reports/analysis, and a variety of in-house publications;
• Make sites structurally sound and easy to navigate, including providing support for multiple languages;
• Help you find, track and subscribe to legislation, as well as participate in the legislative process.

 

Sadly, there are nations who won’t tell voters the names of legislators (let alone how to contact them), provide zero access to legislation, schedules and agendas or don’t allow voters to view or track legislation or their actions …  and as this Forum grows, all of this will be discussed here.

 

Hopefully the information and views collected will help establish and enact international standards and concepts for legislative and governmental websites, and because of how important this is, I want you to be directly involved. Your ideas, thoughts and comments are important, and I’d love to hear them and make them part of this Forum!

 

Oh, and one last thing – we fully expect to publish regularly – at least two or three times a week – so stay tuned, we’ll be publishing an agenda soon.

 

In closing, you can contact me personally at ssorleahcim@comcast.net or 916.923.2215.

Thank you, I look forward to hearing from, and working with you!

 

Michael