OPRAmachine

Winner of the 2019 Excellence in Local News Award

OPRAmachine won in the “Innovate Local” category for the site’s innovative approach to public records. Details about the award are available here.

Opening up New Jersey government

OPRAmachine.com is a first of its kind government transparency project that I recently launched to serve the citizens of the state of New Jersey. The site is powered by the New Jersey Open Public Records Act (OPRA), a freedom of information law that allows any citizen of the state to request public records from state and local government agencies.

How it works

OPRAmachine is breaking down barriers by explaining aspects of the OPRA request process. The site allows any citizen to easily file a legally valid public records request and includes a directory that currently includes all 565 municipalities in the state, as well as various state and county governmental agencies. The site has enabled requesters to obtain thousands of pages worth of public records, helping to shine a light on some of the more obscure elements of New Jersey state and local government.

A unique benefit that OPRAmachine provides is that once a public entity provides documents in response to a request, the documents are subsequently stored in the site’s database and made public, allowing the entire public to be able to reap the benefits. This model reduces duplicate requests and serves to further the OPRA law’s purpose of maximizing the citizenry’s knowledge of public affairs.

Thousands of pages released

Since its inception in October, 2017, the OPRAmachine platform has enabled the release of thousands of pages of government documents. Our database of public bodoies currently includes all 565 municipalities in New Jersey, with more public bodies being added on a regular basis. The site has been making an impact and has been used as a research tool by public officials, journalists and activists seeking to obtain authoritative information about public entities in the state. We recently added a documentation that includes detailed information about the process of making a request through the site, as well as reference material concerning the legal and site administration issues that may arise as a result of the site’s operation.

Praise for OPRAmachine

“One of the most important tools making New Jersey government more transparent.”

• Citizens Media TV

“Thanks to Gavin Rozzi’s “OPRA Machine” website, the Atlantic County Government can no longer pretend to be transparent. Now they must do it for real.”

• Atlantic County News

“The latest installation of our Alaveteli software, OPRAmachine, is an interesting new use of the platform. Rather than covering a whole country, as most of the other Alaveteli installations around the world do, it services just a single US state.”

• Gemma Moulder, of the UK-based mySociety, which created the open-source software that powers the OPRAmachine platform.

OPRAmachine’s impact in New Jersey

Following four months of work, I reflected on some of the accomplishments of the web service in this blog post.

By the numbers

Since October, 2017, OPRAmachine has seen:

• 14665 public records requests
• 7586 followup messages sent
• 2551 registered users
• 1249 public bodies
• 202 annotations added to requests
• 838 tracked requests

Latest OPRA requests

Powered by the OPRAmachine API

• Weekly Felony Complaints- December 18, 2020 thru December 24, 2020

  Requested from: Ocean County Prosecutor's Office

  Requested by: ASK NJ Media

  Status: Successful.

  Dear Sir/Madam:

  Attached please find the document pursuant to your request.

   

  Best regards,

  [1]dPrestia

   

  References

  Visible links…

• Records related to Freiling vs Borough of Clementon

  Requested from: Clementon Borough

  Requested by: Rebecca Holloway

  Status: Partially successful.

  Rebecca, See attached settlement agreement in response to your revised opra request below. Jenai Johnson, Administrator/Municipal Clerk Clementon Borou...

• Code Violations

  Requested from: Hamilton Township (Mercer)

  Requested by: Evan Gross

  Status: Partially successful.

  -- Attach a non-image file and/or reply ABOVE THIS LINE with a message, and it will be sent to staff on this request. --

  Township of Hamilton Public…

Chart of requests

Links

Main OPRAmachine website.

Read updates about the project at our blog here.