Even though it received a C-, Kentucky's rank of 13 shows that
its campaign finance disclosure program is better than that of
many other states. Its biggest strength lies in its law,
but it has significant weaknesses in Electronic Filing and in
the usability of its web site.
Kentucky
has one of the strongest campaign finance disclosure
laws in the country. Candidates are required to file
quarterly in non-election years and more than two times
in election years. Candidates must provide itemized information,
including a contributor's occupation and employer, for
contributions over $100. Last-minute contributions do
not have to be reported prior to an election (except
for gubernatorial candidates, who must report last-minute
contributions within 24 hours). Detailed information about
expenditures greater than $25, including subvendor information,
must be disclosed. Independent expenditures over $500 must
be reported, but last-minute independent expenditures are not
reported prior to an election. Kentucky's electronic filing
program is adequately funded, training and technical assistance
are offered to filers and web-based filing is available, but
electronic filing is voluntary for both statewide and legislative
candidates, bringing down its grade in this category.
Kentucky
does a good job of making campaign finance data accessible
to the public. All campaign finance data is available
in a searchable database of contributions on the web
site because staff from the Kentucky Registry of Election
Finance data enter campaign finance information for candidates
who do not file electronically. Unfortunately the data
entry takes time and paper filed records are often not available
on the site until 10 days after they have been received.
The database allows searches by contributor's name, zip code
and employer, contribution amount and date. The data can be
downloaded for analysis offline, but it is not possible to
sort data online and there is no searchable database of expenditures.
The contextual usability of Kentucky's web site is very poor. The
site has some historical data about campaign financing, but no
lists of total amounts raised and spent by candidates in recent
or current elections. It appears that annual campaign
finance activity reports are required by law, but the last such
report is for 2001. In addition, the site does not explain
which campaign finance records are and are not on the site and
the disclosure reporting periods are not clearly labeled. Kentucky's
scores in the usability testing reflect the poor usability of
the site. Only two of six usability testers were able
to locate disclosure agency's web site from the state homepage
and it took more than ten minutes to do so. Most testers
could find no information about the governor's campaign finances.
