For transparency and accountability, record and publish each vote made by City Council
To increase transparency and accountability, it would be great if each vote cast by a member of City Council was recorded and made public in an easily consumable fashion.
When city council meetings were virtual, a citizen could easily determine how each member of council voted on each item. However now that meetings are being held in person, this is simply not possible. Even in person, the individual votes are not always clear from the gallery.
Here are a couple of examples of how other municipalities have done this:
- the City of Toronto provides a searchable system to show all votes by councillor: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/getAdminReport.do?function=prepareMemberVoteReport
- the City of Kingston includes the voting results for each item within their minutes (see attachment)
James Kerekes
shared this idea
-
Morgan
commented
This right here is an accessibility issue
And the city of barrie should be doing this. -
Kevin Fair
commented
Toronto's app looks ideal, and shouldn't be difficult to implement. Not everyone has time to watch city council each week, but want to know how/if their councillor is representing them.
-
S
commented
We elect city councillors to represent the best interests of each ward, and the city as a whole.
Having to watch hours of council meetings to see how our councillor(s) voted on a matter is not accessible to all, nor is it transparent.
As a councillor, you would think you would want the citizens you represent to see how you voted. I would seriously question any councillor who does not want a recorded vote. Just who’s interests are they representing?
-
Greg Luber
commented
This is a necessary level of accountability our elected members must be adhered to. The desired method would be a searchable database, as the City of Toronto has implemented.