A new data portal launched this month offers public access to the voting history of the mayor and city council members from every council meeting.

The Office of the City Clerk created the data tool, called the Council Voting History Page, to support the city’s goal of transparency and making information easy to access for the public, said City Clerk Myrna Rios. The database contains all voting records from city council meetings starting in January of this year and will be updated on a continuous basis following future meetings. 

The City Clerk’s Office manages official records, like ordinances and resolutions, manages agendas for board and council meetings, and acts as official historian for the city. The database requires staff to manually comb through each set of minutes from past meetings to compile the voting record. However, over time this process will increasingly rely on automation, allowing for easier updates and more expansive data, Rios said.

“As a city we do have initiatives for large technology that can automate things like this but a lot of times, those things take time,” Rios said. “Often, we rely on a shorter term solution that requires more of a human aspect to develop that solution and make it available immediately to the public.” 

To make the database more accessible, Rios said users can filter voting history by individual council member, meeting date, how the vote was cast and agenda item. 

“Like any other department or any datasets that are out there, of course, if we can streamline a process we most definitely will,” Rios said. 

TX Votes President Scott Poole said access to city council members’ voting history will get individuals more involved in city government and help to rebuild public trust in our institutions. 

 Poole, a government and history junior, said, “Any measure that increases transparency in the government and helps people (and) voters … demystify what the government is doing and how it’s affecting their lives (is) a good thing.”

From a student perspective, Poole said the data tool helps students not from Austin understand what is happening locally. He said students can see how council members voted on items that directly affect them, like a resolution passed in September preventing developers from building windowless bedrooms. 

“Local government is the form of government that’s going to affect us (as) the citizenry the most,” Poole said.