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The State of Disclosure in Delaware
Despite improved performance in the web site
usability category, Delaware received an F
again in the 2007 assessment.
Delaware’s
disclosure law grade has remained unchanged
since 2005. Candidates are required to report
the name and address, but not the occupation
or employer, of each donor who gives $100
or more. Details about expenditures of $100
or more must be disclosed, but subvendor
information is not required. There is no
reporting of last-minute contributions or
independent expenditures until after the
election, and enforcement suffers from a
lack of mandatory desk reviews and field
audits. Delaware law does not require electronic
filing by candidates. The Department of Elections
does offer candidates an electronic filing
option and recently enhanced the system by
allowing candidates to use online filing
forms. Candidates have responded enthusiastically
to the improvements; the agency reported that
an impressive 85 percent of statewide and 50
percent of legislative candidates took advantage
of the electronic filing option in the last
election. However, the lack of an electronic
filing requirement keeps Delaware from earning
a better grade in this category.
The state received an F in the Disclosure
Content Accessibility category, with significant
deficiencies stemming from the lack of searchable,
online databases of contributions and expenditures.
The site did improve in terms of file formats
by switching to PDFs from the more cumbersome
TIFF file format, but itemized data still cannot
be sorted online or downloaded for offline
research. The Department of Elections has increased
the cost of paper copies since 2005, from $.25
to $.50 per page. One recent improvement to
data access is that the agency will now provide
campaign data to the public on disk.
Delaware
improved to a passing grade in the web site
usability category in 2007 and moved up seven
places in the rankings. Better performance
on the usability test accounts for the state’s
higher grade, with testers citing less overall
confusion and a better general experience with
the site in 2007. However, the main process
for viewing campaign reports is somewhat difficult,
as users cannot view a complete listing of
candidate reports on one screen. Instead, users
must first select a reporting year before choosing
a candidate from a listing of all of the candidates
registered in that year. Also contributing
to the site’s low rating is a lack of
contextual information, such as comparative
overviews of candidates’ campaign finance
data.
→ Quick
Fix: Add information to help
the public determine whose reports
are available online. The disclosure
web site includes very little information
to help visitors figure out the universe
of filings available on the site.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Contribution
limits are prominently linked from
the campaign finance homepage (View
image) and
are presented in a clean and easily
accessible chart. (View
image)
 Disclosure
Agency: Department
of Elections
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.elections.delaware.gov
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