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The State of Disclosure in Maryland
Maryland
has earned a C in each of the five Grading
State Disclosure assessments conducted since
2003, and ranked 32nd in 2008. The state
earned the same grade in each area of the
assessment as it did in 2007, earning an
A+ for electronic filing, an A for accessibility,
and Ds in the law and usability categories.
As
in 2007, Maryland’s disclosure law
earned a D- and ranked 44th in 2008. Candidates
must report the names of contributors giving
$51 or more, but not occupation or employer
data. Expenditure disclosure is stronger, but
does not include subvendor reporting. A major
weakness of the law is the lack of independent
expenditure disclosure. Despite the weak law,
Maryland’s overall disclosure program
is strengthened by an excellent electronic
filing system that is mandatory for both statewide
and legislative candidates and again received
an A+ and number one ranking in this category
in 2008. To assist electronic filers, the State
Board of Elections offers training seminars
as well as online training manuals and sample
filings.
Maryland earned an A again and ranked 7th
in the Disclosure Content Accessibility category
in 2008. In partnership with the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County, the State Board
of Elections provides excellent access to campaign
disclosure reports online. The public can browse
clean, HTML versions of both electronic reports
and paper-filed reports that have been data-entered
by agency staff. The public can also search
comprehensive databases of campaign contributions
and expenditures that contain records from
both paper and electronic reports. Within both
reports and database search results, itemized
transactions can be downloaded and are presented
with helpful summary information, such as the
total amount and the largest individual transaction.
With
no changes made in the last year, Maryland’s
disclosure database earned a D again in 2008
in the Online Contextual and Technical Usability
category. The Board of Elections’ web
site performed well again on the usability
test, with most testers rating their experience
on site as average or higher. The main shortcoming
of the site is the lack of several key pieces
of contextual information: there are no overviews
comparing fundraising and spending between
candidates; the starting and ending dates of
reporting periods are not provided with reports;
amended reports are not labeled as such; and,
when a report is amended the original version
is removed from the site.
→ Quick
Fix: Provide the starting
and ending date for each reporting
period in the index of a candidate’s
reports and within the report itself.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Itemized transactions
within disclosure reports, and within
database search results, list the largest,
smallest, and cumulative amount of the
transactions. View
image
 Disclosure Agency: State Board of Elections
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.elections.state.md.us
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