New Hampshire is heading in a dangerous direction with a proposed change in its open meetings law.

House Bill 626 would allow government bodies to hold virtual meetings via the Internet, to conduct business through e-mail or with a telephone conference call as long as minutes of the meeting are accessible to the public after the fact.

The bill flies in the face of the intent of public meeting laws, which are meant to guarantee that government business cannot be conducted in secret. Allowing members of a town council or school board to “meet” electronically is exclusionary.

Not everyone has access to a computer or high-speed Internet connection, which would make monitoring a electronic meeting impractical or impossible for many people.

The purposes of holding a meeting in the open in the first place are so government can be held accountable for its actions and so the public will be privy to the information that lead to a particular outcome.

It’s not enough to publish meeting minutes after the fact. Details can be lost, mistakes can be made and information purposefully withheld. We’ve seen enough minutes from town council and school committee meetings to know they often don’t provide enough information to reconstruct what actually happened live.

Maine communities have been struggling to adopt rules for proper e-mail and electronic communications. There’s an ongoing effort by some to push more and more of the public’s business out of sight.

If New Hampshire fails to recognize the dangerous path it has started down, its ill-advised law could become a model that other politicians – in Maine and elsewhere – can point to as they make the case for restricting public access and legalizing virtual meetings.

Maine’s Freedom of Access law is clear. Public meetings should be held in the public and only after proper notification. Allowing politicians and appointed boards to slip behind an electronic door to conduct business would harm every resident of this state.

New Hampshire should reject this law, and politicians in Maine should be on notice: Such disregard for open government will meet with serious and determined opposition here.