So, if it’s our civic duty to keep up with what our government is up to, how exactly do we do that? Peter Kinnaird, master’s student in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, wondered the same thing and came up with a program called Connect 2 Congress that makes keeping up with one’s representatives as easy as clicking a mouse. To read more about Connect to Congress, click "Read More."
The system works by analyzing congressional voting records with a type of mathematical analysis known as a Poole-Rosenthal score. Connect 2 Congress looks at all the votes that take place over that session of Congress and assigns values to it. Each yes vote gets a one and each no gets a zero. Those who don’t vote are given a nine, which excludes them from the count for that issue.
Among a few interesting uses, voters can use the system to see how well the parties’ votes align at different points in the session. They can also see whether their representatives vote with their party or go off on their own.
In addition to showing where each member fits on the political spectrum, Connect 2 Congress also conducts a leadership analysis on each member.
Connect 2 Congress pulls its data from GovTrack.us (http:// govtrack.us), not the Library of Congress, because GovTrack.is considered reliable by government watchdog groups and it provides the date in a format that’s easier to use.
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