ANNAPOLIS, MD — Governor Wes Moore today announced the implementation of a modernized online version of the
Code of Maryland Regulations—the State of Maryland’s compilation of administrative regulations. Also known as COMAR, the site is accessed more than 100,000 times every month and is used by all state agencies, courts, libraries, law firms, businesses, subscribers, and individuals who need to know the law.
“Modernizing state government means sweating the details of transparency, access, and archiving,”
said Gov. Moore. “The new system does what technology does best—it will save Marylanders valuable time in combing through state websites, update how we publish state documents, and bring Maryland into the 21st century. And in a larger sense, this new online modernization speaks to our continued project of making government more effective, more efficient, and more accessible to the people we represent.”
Using this new system, Marylanders can more easily reference the regulations that impact their daily lives, from small business owners reviewing labor regulations to families applying for student loans or unemployment insurance. In addition to improving algorithms that help eliminate formatting errors, inconsistent search results, and bugs plaguing the previous system, the modernized online platform incorporates the following improvements:
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Enhanced Usability: The redesigned interface offers improved search capabilities, intuitive navigation, seamless links to statutes and regulations, and clean printing abilities—making COMAR significantly easier for the public to use and navigate.
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Efficiency and Automation: Under the previous system, Division of State Documents staff within the Office of the Secretary of State needed to download, edit, and upload regulations multiple times to keep the system updated—requiring significant manual work. The new system reduces this burden by automating the regulatory drafting and publishing process, saving staff valuable time and improving government efficiency.
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Machine-Readable Format: The entire COMAR dataset is now available in open-source, computer-readable XML format. This machine-readable format is a tech industry standard that allows users to integrate the website’s data with various tech systems, including AI models—creating new possibilities for how Marylanders can understand and track changes to laws and regulations.
The updates to COMAR were made possible through a partnership between the Maryland Secretary of State’s Office and the
Maryland Digital Service, which Governor Moore established to help state agencies increase efficiency, transparency, and accessibility in digital government operations. The State of Maryland also partnered with the Open Law Library, a nonprofit organization that builds open-source legal publishing and legislative drafting software to make laws more accessible, transparent, and machine-readable.
“The launch of the new COMAR platform is the first of many major state platform overhauls being led by the Maryland Digital Service,”
said Maryland Department of Information Technology Secretary Katie Savage. “This new and improved platform will not only make it easier for Marylanders to understand how their government works—it was also built from the ground up to be machine-readable, leaving the door open for the integration of Generative AI in the future.”
“The Moore-Miller Administration wants through this modernization to make our state regulations easier for citizens, businesses, and public servants to access, while utilizing a smarter, more cost-effective approach to government,”
said Secretary of State Susan C. Lee. “The new platform upholds Governor Moore’s mandate to streamline internal workflows, reduce manual processes, and by doing so, saves taxpayer dollars while increasing transparency and efficiency.”
“By automating codification and publishing, we free governments to focus on serving people—not wrestling with outdated systems,”
said Open Law Library Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder David Greisen. “It has been a true pleasure collaborating with the Maryland Department of Information Technology and the Division of State Documents to make this vision a reality, and to ensure the citizens of Maryland have access to up-to-date, accurate regulations.”
The State of Maryland is also using technology called The Archive Framework, first introduced in 2019 by NYU Tandon's Justin Cappos in partnership with the Open Law Library. This cryptographic system detects tampering and preserves historical versions of legal documents, providing an additional layer of protection for Maryland's COMAR platform.
“Think of the archive framework like a high-security bank vault for legal documents,”
said New York University Center for Cybersecurity Faculty Member and NYU Tandon School of Engineering Computer Science and Engineering Department Professor Justin Cappos. “Traditional legal websites are like file cabinets, and anyone with the key can change what's inside without leaving a trace. TAF not only makes any attempts to change the law visible so that bad actions can be detected, but also stops bad actors from changing the law in the first place. This matters because in a democracy, citizens need absolute confidence that the laws they're reading are authentic and haven't been secretly altered by hackers or malicious insiders.”
The current COMAR site, hosted at
dsd.maryland.gov, will be deactivated in early 2026.
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