Local governments play an important role in Americans’ lives but relatively little attention is paid to how these governments operate and disseminate information such as budgets meeting minutes and salaries. MIT GOV/LAB has developed a machine learning pipeline to automatically evaluate local government websites, enabling us to complete the first comprehensive set of transparency ratings for local governments in the United States. Via data visualizations and other publicity methods, we plan to use these transparency ratings to inform government officials and citizens about the relative transparency of their local government and assess which methods are most effective in improving such transparency.

“I’m excited for the opportunity to combine my interests in political science and computer science into this research project. I hope this project will encourage local governments to be more transparent and, in the process, improve the lives of citizens across the United States.”