There
has been little movement since 2003 in
the campaign finance disclosure arena
in Nebraska, a fact that is underscored
by the state’s unchanged overall
grade and rank. Nebraska’s
strength still lies in its campaign finance
disclosure law, and its most significant
weakness in Disclosure Content Accessibility.
Nebraska
law requires candidates to file one campaign
finance statement in non-election years
and two before each election. Details
for contributions greater than $250 must
be reported, but a contributor’s
occupation and employer are not required
to be disclosed. Last-minute contributions
of $1,000 or more must be reported prior
to the election. Details must be
disclosed for expenditures greater than
$250, but subvendor information is not
required. Independent expenditures
of $250 or more must be disclosed, and
large last-minute independent expenditures
must be reported before the election. There
is no electronic filing of campaign finance
reports in Nebraska.
Nebraska
again received an F for Disclosure Content
Accessibility, even though the Accountability
and Disclosure Commission web site contains
all campaign finance filings. Reports are posted to the
site quickly, but the format makes it extremely
difficult to analyze the campaign finance
data. Records are displayed in computer-generated
PDF files following data entry of reports
by agency staff, which makes the lack of
searchable databases of contributions and
expenditures all the more surprising. There
is no reason why data that is already computerized
should be displayed online in a static
format, rather than a searchable database,
downloadable Excel-compatible files, or
at the very least a sortable HTML format.
There
is significant room for improvement in
Nebraska in the area of web site usability,
most notably in contextual usability. The
disclosure web site lacks summary information
to give the public a better overview of
candidates’ fundraising and spending
totals. Also missing is an in-depth
explanation of whose records are available
online and what time period is covered
by the reports. For user-friendliness
and ease of navigation, the Accountability
and Disclosure Commission web site design
needs to be unified. Page backgrounds
vary widely in color and pattern, some
to the point of being distracting; instead
of focusing on the information on the page,
the site user focuses on taking in each
new page design and trying to understand
the structure of the site. It became
easier to locate the disclosure web site
from the main Nebraska homepage, which
likely contributed to the slight increase
in the state’s usability testing
score.
