North
Dakota's F and overall rank of 48 can be attributed to the
fact that it has the weakest campaign disclosure law in the
country, does poorly in making campaign finance data available
to the public and lacks an electronic filing program. The
only reason it does not come in last overall is that the
Secretary of State's web site is easy to use, provides
some context for understanding disclosure in the state, and
does contain some campaign finance data, (as opposed to the
states ranked 49 and 50 in the study, which do not publish
any campaign finance records on the Internet.)
Candidates
for office in North Dakota must file one statement prior to
each election, plus an annual report in both election and non-election
years. Candidates are required to disclose
information about contributors who give more than $200, but that
information does not include the contributor's occupation or
employer, or the details of loans given to campaigns. Last-minute
contributions of $500 or more must be reported within 48 hours. Expenditures,
independent expenditures and last-minute independent expenditures
are not required to be disclosed.
To
improve accessibility to the campaign finance data that is disclosed
by candidates in the state, North Dakota could expand upon
the static lists of itemized contributions currently
available on its disclosure web site. Putting the same
records – which are already in an electronic format thanks
to the agency having data-entered information from the
paper filings – into
a database or other format that allows searching, sorting
and downloading, would give the public the ability to
utilize this information in a much more meaningful way.
North
Dakota performs best in the area of web site usability, using
clear terminology and providing information on its web site
to help the public understand campaign financing in the state. An explanation of the law, a comprehensive list
of candidates, and a format that clearly shows the universe of
reports available on the site all contribute to a number five
ranking in this category. The site could be improved,
however, with the addition of an analysis or summary of
campaign finance information, a better explanation of the
disclosure reporting periods, and a format for viewing all of
a particular candidate's reports from the same index page (as
opposed to the current system, which organizes reports by date
and requires a lot of moving around the site in order to see
all the filings for one candidate over multiple years.)
