New York's low performance in the disclosure law category and
its F in the area of web site usability bring the state's overall
grade down to a D, in spite of a strong electronic filing program
and relatively good marks for accessibility of campaign finance
data.
New
York's campaign disclosure law requires that candidates file
two statements in non-election years and two statements before
each election. Candidates must disclose detailed
information about contributors who give $99 or more, but occupation
and employer information is not required. Expenditures
of $50 or more, including details about payments to subvendors,
must be reported. Last-minute contributions of $1,000
or more must be disclosed within 24 hours, but there is no equivalent
reporting for last-minute independent expenditures. New
York has mandatory electronic filing for all candidates
who reach a threshold of $1,000, and gives candidates free
software and the option to file some reports over the web.
Relative
to other states, New York does a good job of making campaign
finance information accessible to the public, but with
a D+ in this category there is definitely room for improvement. Campaign
finance reports are posted to the web site within a few
days of being filed, and the site includes a searchable
database of campaign contributions. Unfortunately, the
only searchable field is the contributor's name; other
fields, such as date and amount of contribution and contributor's
zip code, are displayed in the records but are not searchable. What
hurts New York's grade the most in the area of access
to data, however, is the lack of an expenditure database — itemized
expenditures can be browsed online when viewing a complete
report, but cannot be searched.
The
Board of Elections could also improve the contextual
information on its web site to give the public a better
understanding of the “big picture” of disclosure
in New York. The state
loses points because it does not offer a compilation of
summary amounts raised and spent by state-level candidates. Also
missing is information about disclosure reporting periods — reporting
requirements are described elsewhere on the web site, but the
timeframe that defines each report is not included with the
report itself. To its credit, the agency does
a great job telling the public exactly whose reports are
available on its web site, maintaining a list of both the
active and inactive committees whose information is in
the contribution database and stating specifically that the
data go back to July 15, 1999.
The
technical usability of New York's disclosure web site
is good, and the main state web site does a great job
directing those seeking official campaign finance data
to the Board of Elections web site, through a search on the
state portal. Typing in “campaign
finance” to the search window on the state homepage returns
just one search result with the name of the disclosure agency
and a link directly to its homepage.
