Mississippi
has made few changes to its campaign
finance disclosure program in the past
year, but a substantial drop in its usability
testing score caused a corresponding
drop in its Online Contextual and Technical
Usability grade, and also caused the state’s
overall rank to fall from 35 to 38.
Mississippi
law requires candidates to file one statement
in non-election years and four statements
before an election. Candidates
must disclose detailed information, including
occupation and employer, about contributors
giving more than $200. Last-minute
contributions are required to be reported
prior to an election. Information
about expenditures over $200 must be reported,
but subvendor information is not required
to be disclosed. Independent expenditures
must be disclosed, but last-minute independent
expenditures are not reported prior to
an election. The Secretary of State
co-sponsored a bill in 2004 (HB 1244) to
require electronic filing of disclosure
reports. The bill was passed by the
legislature but vetoed by the Governor,
and Mississippi still does not have an
electronic filing program.
The
state’s F grade in the area
of access to campaign finance records is
again the biggest weakness for Mississippi,
providing considerable room for improvement
in this category. Reports for all
statewide and legislative candidates, going
back to 1995, are scanned and available
on the Secretary of State’s web site. The
system for accessing reports is easy to
use and filings are posted online fairly
quickly, but the lack of any electronic
data on the agency’s web site greatly
impacts Mississippi’s Disclosure
Content Accessibility grade. Access
to paper copies of reports is excellent.
Mississippi’s grade in the area
of web site usability fell from a C- to
a D, not because of significant changes
to the disclosure web site, but because
of a drop in the state’s usability
testing score. Strengths in Online
Contextual and Technical Usability include
comprehensive information about disclosure
requirements and campaign finance restrictions,
a complete list of candidates, and a good
description of which campaign finance filings
are available online. The addition
of overview information to help the public
easily compare the total amounts raised
and spent by various candidates, along
with better handling of amended reports
online, would improve Mississippi’s
performance in this category.
