Last week I linked to a post on the “State of Elections” blog in which William and Mary law students tried to put a piece of Heather Gerken’s “Democracy Index”  proposal into action by ranking state election websites.  One of Gerken’s key arguments is that a ranking would shame those states ranking low into improving their electoral systems.  (I explore these causal argument in this review of the book in the California Law Review).

So here’s one piece of evidence that the shaming mechanism might work:  Rhode Island feels the shame of being “tied for worst election website in US.”