A clever new website has been launched that tracks Portuguese MPs’ voting and attendance records.
Hemicycle.pt enables the public and the press to see who has voted for what – and how this marries up with what MPs have said to their constituents.
Hemicycle’s developers intend that the free service encourages a "more rigorous scrutiny of elected representatives."
As from today, the online portal allows the consultation of the voting records of each MP at each stage of the legislative process for each new law.
The project, created by Luís Vargas and David Crisóstomo, aims to "bring citizens closer to democracy."
Most of the information comes from Parliament's own website which is notoriously complicated to use. Now, voting records can be accessed so interested parties can, for example, track MPs votes on oil and gas exploration and Via do Infante tolls.
Hemicycle.pt allows "people to search for an MP to follow, monitor, scrutinise, and verify votes," explains David Crisóstomo. "We have statistics like the percentage of women in each party bench. This is a simple thing but it can not be found anywhere else."
"We have the capacity to go back to the mid-1990s," says Crisóstomo. It is in our plans to integrate this information in the future, as well as other news. We are aware of the challenge and are fully committed to a constant and real-time update of the portal.”
