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November 24, 2009
Campaign finance disclosure should be fully electronic
The Knoxville News-Sentinel editors write today that in order for voters to make the best possible decisions in the 2010 elections, campaign finance disclosure should be paid more attention:
What the public should demand is timely and thorough disclosure - where the money is coming from and to whom is it going. Disclosure will come more often during 2010, and it will need to be followed, not merely by the media but by all who seek to make an informed vote in the August primary and the November general election.
As is mentioned in that editorial, ethics training for legislators and a somewhat better disclosure mechanism were indeed part of the reaction to Operation Tennessee Waltz; but I maintain that the crimes committed and found out during that sting involved illegal cash payments—out-and-out bribes—rather than legal campaign contributions, or even the clever use of loopholes.
Furthermore, the goal of those reforms was not, in my view, to reduce the overall amount raised and spent by candidates. "Now candidates are raising as much money as ever," laments the editor. While it's a shame that so much money must be collected in order to secure a position of viability in a given race, I say that as long as the funds are acquired legally, and reported promptly, the amount alone doesn't seem to be the problem.
But I agree that all of us need to pay attention to the sources and recipients of election-related money. No question. And in addition to the media, and their audiences, I am hopeful that our state and local elections offices will begin doing something to help. Two specific reforms will enable better disclosure to be more meaningful at the same time.
Report earlier. This gets to the "timely" aspect mentioned in the Knoxville paper. The final reporting deadlines in many (if not all) election cycles fall just a few days prior to the election date. By the time an increasingly overworked newsroom collects and disseminates the financial data, and it is then digested by the public and regurgitated by pundits, it is past time to vote. Reporting should be timed so that voters have access to the data before a significant part of early voting has been completed.
Implement electronic reporting. Last winter, my friends at Chattarati created a project for the 2009 Chattanooga elections called "Cash Maps." The local election commission readily supplied the disclosures electronically—but they were merely scanned images of the paper forms filled out by campaign treasurers. The data entry that preceded the final product made for some long nights, I'm told. This is just one example that demonstrates the need for a technologically enhanced campaign disclosure process.
Whether the data entry task then would fall on election bureau workers or campaign staffers is a worthy discussion, as each prospect has its pros and cons. I'm not claiming to have all the answers. But the campaign finance disclosure product available from our election offices should be electronic data that is usable by either wholesale (media) or retail (citizen) consumers.
Campaign finance | By joe lance | 5:38 PM
