We see now in US a big debate about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) - the freedom and censorship of internet. Individual people, not only politicians, are seriously involved in the debate. They are creating tracking tools to see how congress will vote. @randyme came up with an application where you can easily find congresman in your area and see/follow them how they vote on the SOPA matter. It brings transparency and social pressure.
This is really great. I have envisioned a service like this for a long time. I would love to see somebody create it on a global scale or at least countrywide. Let’s archive all congress people votes (this is done in parliament archives anyway) and later we could easily track how they have voted on important for us matters. If we then create our profile based on how we would vote, we could see how politicians match our values. The choice for our support in the next election would be rather simple. Newcomers could be easily benchmarked as well, they will just tell how they would vote.
If somebody heard of or will develop a service like this, please let me know. I’d like to join.
Transparent politics, city councils, etc … It’s worth a try!