The State of Disclosure in Ohio

A drop in Ohio’s Online Contextual and Technical Usability grade overshadowed an improvement in its Campaign Disclosure Law grade, and contributed to a slight drop in the state’s overall rank in the study, from 7th to 11th in the nation. Ohio’s overall B- did not change.

Candidates in Ohio must report detailed information about contributors giving more than $100, including occupation and employer. Expenditure details include accrued expenses, but not subvendor payments. Independent expenditures must be reported, but reports do not include who benefits and last-minute independent expenditures are not disclosed until after Election Day. The improvement in Ohio’s law grade, which climbed from a C to a C+, is due to new legislation requiring semi-annual campaign filings in July of each year. Candidates reaching a $10,000 threshold must file electronically; however, committees are now able to apply for a “hardship” exemption, which will permit paper filing with payment of a data entry fee.

Ohio’s biggest strength is still in the area of accessibility of campaign disclosure records, and the state maintained its A- in that category. Ohio continues to offer one of the best databases of campaign finance records in the country, and gives site visitors many ways to search, sort, and download itemized contributions and expenditures. All candidates’ disclosure reports are available online and can be either browsed or searched, and campaign data goes back to 1990. To improve further in Disclosure Content Accessibility, the disclosure agency could improve access to paper copies of campaign records, and more quickly post data from paper-filed reports online.

A lower score in the usability test—which was conducted before Ohio redesigned its disclosure web site in August—caused Ohio’s Online Contextual and Technical Usability grade to drop from a C to a D+, and its rank in this category to drop from 12 to 19. Testers had difficultly determining how much money the governor raised, and many found the web site’s terminology confusing and rated the site poorly overall. Adding the full reporting period to the index of reports for each committee is one improvement that could be made relatively easily and would give site visitors additional contextual information when browsing candidates’ filings.

→ Quick Fix: Add a note to the instructions telling site visitors that the searchable database is capable of conducting “name contains” searches using the % character.

♦ Editor’s Pick: Campaign Finance File Transfer Page, offering static files containing large amounts of itemized campaign data that are updated daily. View image

Disclosure Agency: Secretary of State
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.state.oh.us/sos