New
York again received an overall D for
its campaign disclosure program, but
its rank dropped from 25 to 30 because
of improvements made in the rest of the
country. The
state’s strongest category is again
Electronic Filing, and its weakest performance
is still in the area of web site usability.
New
York law requires candidates to file
twice in non-election years and twice
before each election. Candidates must provide
detailed information about contributors
who give $99 or more, but neither occupation
nor employer information is disclosed. Last-minute
contributions of $1,000 or more must be
disclosed prior to the election. Expenditures
of $50 or more, including subvendor information,
must be reported, but there is no disclosure
of independent expenditures. Electronic
filing is mandatory for all statewide and
legislative candidates who file with the
State Board of Elections, and the agency
reported that it is in the process of enhancing
its web-based filing system to include
all types of statements.
While
its Disclosure Content Accessibility
grade improved slightly, New York’s
rank in this category dropped from 19 to
22, as other states moved forward with
significant advancements in data accessibility. The
strength of the State Board of Elections
web site is that it features a searchable
database of contributions that is both
comprehensive (paper-filed records are
manually entered into the system) and up-to-date. However,
the system lacks search capability, as
described in this study last year, and
there is no corresponding database of expenditure
information. The two most important
changes that could be made to New York’s
disclosure web site are adding an expenditures
search and increasing the number of fields
by which the contributions data can be
searched.
Online
Contextual and Technical Usability is
the category in which New York has the
most significant room for improvement. While
the disclosure site does include a comprehensive
list of candidates, a thorough description
of whose reports are online, and information
about the state’s disclosure requirements,
it is still missing important overview information
to help people easily compare the campaign
finance activity of various candidates. Additionally,
New York’s score in the usability testing
dropped in 2004. The agency recently
redesigned its web site, but not until after
the close of this project’s web site
review period, so the redesign will be evaluated
as part of Grading State Disclosure 2005.
