While
there has been a big change at Colorado’s
disclosure agency—Secretary of State
Donetta Davidson left in August to join
the Election Assistance Commission, after
serving as Secretary since 1999—there
has been little change to the state’s
disclosure program and web site in the
last year. Colorado’s overall
grade dropped slightly to a D+ in 2005,
due to a lower grade in the usability category.
Colorado’s
disclosure law is its biggest strength,
and requires the disclosure of detailed
information for all who contribute $20
or more, plus occupation and employer
for those giving $100 or more. Disclosure
of expenditure data is thorough, except
that candidates are not required to report
subvendor information. Other gaps in the
law include a lack of mandatory desk or
field audits, and a lack of detailed reporting requirements for
loans received by committees. Electronic
filing is voluntary for candidates in Colorado,
and the state reports it now has adequate
funding for that program. Electronically-filed reports are due two days after manually-filed reports, to provide added incentive
for candidates to file by electronic means.
The
state’s grade in the Disclosure
Content Accessibility category remained
static, but its rank dropped for the second
year in a row as other states improved
in this area. Colorado’s comprehensive
databases and format for browsing filed
reports keep it among the top twenty states
for data accessibility, but the missing
database search fields mentioned in earlier Grading
State Disclosure reports (contributor’s
zip code and employer, and expenditure
purpose) still represent a significant
weakness.
Colorado’s overall grade suffers
most from the poor usability of its web
site, which received an even lower usability
testing score this year than last. Testers
lacked confidence in the campaign finance
data they found on the site, and most felt
the site was somewhat or very confusing.
In terms of contextual usability, the biggest
shortcomings of the disclosure web site
are a lack of basic summary information
showing total amounts raised and spent
by all candidates, an inadequate description
of which records are online, and the confusing
structure of the site.
→ Quick
Fix: Add missing
search fields, as noted above, to the
contribution and expenditure databases.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Index
of reports filed by each candidate. The
index can be sorted and contains
both the due date of each report,
and the date reports were actually
filed, along with a beginning and
ending balance. View image
