Government Officials Must Provide Email Addresses

      When contacting government officials, it is vital to have evidence that indeed you did contact that official on the date you said you did.  At this time, however, many government agencies, representatives, and officials, have their websites set up in such a way that there is no email address provided, and the “contact” section simply has a contact form which states that “Your message has been sent” after you click on the “send” button.  This, however, does not leave the you with evidence that you did, indeed, contact them on the date you said you did.  In order to ensure government accountability, we propose that all government websites must provide users with a receipt to their email inbox whenever contacting them.  The receipt must include a copy of the message you sent to them as well as the date & time your message was sent.  Below are some examples of government webpages which do not provide the user with evidence that they contacted the agency- this is unacceptable:

     County of Marin website:

     After clicking on the “email us” button on the above page:

     Governor Jerry Brown’s email contact page does the same thing:

     Representative Kevin McCarthy’s “contact” section, as with other District Representatives’ websites, offers the same type of vague email “contact us” section: