A
persistent, low F in the Disclosure Content
Accessibility category and a lack of
electronic filing combine to give Arkansas
another overall F, but the state’s
overall rank continued to improve, climbing
to 37th in 2005.
Arkansas’ average
campaign finance law is the bright spot
in the state’s
disclosure system, requiring candidates
to report detailed information about contributors
giving $50 or more, including occupation
and employer. Expenditures above
$99 are also disclosed, but reports do
not include subvendor information. Reports
of independent expenditures are thin on
details, such as who benefits from
the expenditure and cumulative amount spent;
neither contributions nor independent expenditures
made right before the election are disclosed
until after Election Day. While Arkansas
still does not have an electronic filing
program in place, representatives of the
Secretary of State’s office report
they are currently researching e-filing
systems and hope to implement one soon.
The
strength of Arkansas’ campaign
disclosure web site in the past has been
its comprehensiveness and the speed with
which candidate filings are scanned and
posted online. However, one news
organization did report a significant slowdown
in the posting of those filings to the
Secretary of State’s site in the
months leading up to the 2004 general election.
One obvious way to avoid such delays is
to implement electronic filing; taking
that step would also improve the readability
of the reports, some of which are poorly
handwritten and display sideways on the
screen, rendering them nearly impossible
to read online.
The
only category in which Arkansas made
measurable improvements in 2005 was Online
Contextual and Technical Usability. The
state’s grade in this area rose from
an F and rank of 38, to a D+ and rank of
19, a result of a big improvement in Arkansas’ performance
in the web site usability test. All
of the testers located the specific campaign
finance data they were looking for, and
all expressed confidence in the accuracy
of the site.
→ Quick
Fix: Make information
about campaign finance rules more
visible. Site
visitors may find it difficult to
locate information about campaign
fundraising and spending restrictions,
which is now in the “Ethics
Reporting Forms” section
of the web site. The agency could
make those rules more visible by
featuring them elsewhere or changing
the name of the “Reporting
Forms” link
to better reflect what is available
there.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Monthly
filing of disclosure reports in election
years.
