Alabama's
grade and rank show that the state has significant room to
improve its campaign finance disclosure program. The
grade reflects a weak campaign disclosure law and significant
inadequacies on its campaign finance web site.
Alabama's
law requires candidates to file annual reports in non-election
years and two campaign finance reports before an election.
Candidates are required to disclose details about contributors
who give $100 or more, but occupation and employer do not have
to be reported. Candidates do not have to report late
contributions. Candidates must file detailed information
about expenditures of $100 or more, but subvendor information
is not required. In addition, there is no reporting of
independent expenditures. Alabama has no electronic filing
program.
The
state scans campaign finance reports and makes them available
on its web site in PDF format, but there are no searchable
databases of contributions or expenditures. Although
statements are posted on the site in a timely manner
and reports date back to 1992, campaign finance information
can still be difficult to access. Many campaign finance
reports are hard to read because they appear sideways and the
site does not provide a mechanism for rotating them online
– the only way to view them easily is to download and look
at the PDF files offline in an alternate viewer, such as Adobe
Acrobat Reader.
The
site provides some good contextual information, including an
explanation of the state disclosure laws and campaign finance
restrictions, and a list of candidates for recent or upcoming
elections. However some important additions could improve
it, such as lists of the total amounts raised and spent by state
candidates and clear labeling of both disclosure reporting periods
and amendments to campaign finance reports. Despite its
limitations, Alabama's web site performed reasonably well
in the usability testing, with four out of six usability
testers identifying identical amounts of contributions to the
governor.
