An
improvement in Online Contextual and
Technical Usability has bumped West Virginia’s
overall grade to a D- and moved it into
the ranks of the passing states, though
its placement relative to other states
has not changed and remains at 34.
West
Virginia’s strength continues
to be its campaign disclosure law, which
requires candidates to report detailed
information about all contributors, including
occupation and employer (but not cumulative
amount donated) for those giving $250 or
more. Contributions made at the last
minute are not reported until after Election
Day. Candidates must disclose all
expenditures, but information about subvendor
payments is not included in reports. The
law’s enforcement provisions are
a weak point, particularly in the area
of desk review and field auditing. West
Virginia has a voluntary electronic filing
program, in which approximately 15 percent
of statewide candidates and 20 percent
of legislative candidates participate.
While it is possible to view all state-level candidates’ disclosure reports
on the Secretary of State’s web site shortly after those reports are
filed, records are still displayed in a way that makes it difficult for the
public to analyze the campaign records of one or more committees. Not
only can the data not be searched, sorted, or downloaded, but even the scanned
files that are available online can be difficult to access—for example,
one of the governor’s pre-election reports from 2004 is a 9.9 MB file
that took several minutes to load on a new computer with a fast Internet connection.
Breaking up those filings into several web pages would greatly improve access
to the data, particularly for those using older computer equipment and/or a
slow Internet connection, who may have considerable trouble viewing large reports.
West
Virginia’s grade for Online
Contextual and Technical Usability improved
in 2005 from an F to a D-, due to an improvement
in the state’s usability test score.
West Virginia performed poorly in the test
in 2004, and this year’s score, while
higher, was still among the bottom half
of the states. Testers expressed
a lack of confidence in their ability to
accurately answer questions about candidates’ campaign
finance activity using data on the site,
and most felt that the terminology used throughout
the site was confusing.
→ Quick
Fix: Add the full
reporting period to the index of each
candidate’s disclosure filings.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Link
to “view
reporting calendar” from
the interface for locating and viewing
candidates’ campaign finance reports. View image
