New
York’s overall grade improved
slightly from a D to a D+ in 2005,
though all four of its category
grades remained the same. New
York still performs best in the
areas of electronic filing and
access to disclosure data,
and it made major changes to its disclosure web site in late October that are described below but not reflected in the state’s grade.
The
state’s disclosure law
is below average and requires
candidates to report the name
and address of contributors who
give $100 or more, but not their occupations
and employers. Large, last-minute
contributions are disclosed before
Election Day. Details of expenditures
over $49, including subvendor information,
must be reported, but accrued expenses
are not disclosed. The law’s
most significant weaknesses are in
the areas of independent expenditure
disclosure and enforcement. All
state-level candidates filing with
the State Board of Elections must submit
reports electronically, and the agency
provides free software for that purpose.
An October 2005 redesign of the State Board of Elections web site resulted in a number of significant improvements, but came too late to raise the state’s category grade and New York again received a C- for Disclosure Content Accessibility.
The comprehensive, searchable database of contributions is a useful tool for analyzing fundraising activity across candidates and now allows searching by a contributor’s name and zip code, and by contribution date and amount. Most importantly, the agency added a searchable database of expenditures that can be searched by vendor name and zip code, and expenditure date and amount. Had these upgrades been made prior to the end of the study’s research period, the state would have received a B+ for Disclosure Content Accessibility.
In addition to the database upgrades, the State Board of Elections’ web site now includes lists of the aggregate amounts raised and spent by statewide and legislative candidates; that improvement alone would have resulted in a passing grade for Online Contextual and Technical Usability had it been made before the close of the study’s research window. During the evaluation period, the site was still missing a number of important contextual resources, and received a low score in the usability test.
→ Quick
Fix: Give web site visitors the option to download search results from the searchable contribution and expenditure databases.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Contributor search box that appears on the report index page for each committee. View image
