If you take a look at this page on the Liverpool Council website, you’ll see that the council is making available all the contact details for its councillors in one easy data file format – so that people can stick the data into a mailmerge or database and communicate with them all.
Badly thought out blanket mailings are often the source of complaint from councillors (and elected politicians at other levels too) so it is a brave council that makes it easier for people to send mailings to all the councillors in this way. The data can also be used for more sophisticated mailings that are more effective (and perhaps that is what the council is wanting to do?).
Anyway, what do you think of this idea?
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RT @markpack: New post: An intriguing touch on the Liverpool Council website http://bit.ly/aDEJR0
I think all the modgov systems do this – e.g. see View Mailing List at http://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/local_democracy/democratic_services/default.asp?modgovlink=http%3A%2F%2Frds.eppingforestdc.gov.uk%2FmgCommitteeMailingList.aspx%3FID%3D579.
It’s certainly an option that I’ve found useful in the past and saves a lot of cutting and pasting. The feature is often hidden away though so I’m sure lots of people who could use it don’t know about it.
Bad idea. Don’t tell Greenpeace, or they’ll put it in their spambot.