|
The State of Disclosure in Mississippi
Mississippi
has earned an F in each of the four Grading
State Disclosure studies and this year dropped
down to 46th overall in the rankings due
to a decline in the state’s usability
test performance.
Mississippi
earned a C- again in 2007 in the Campaign
Disclosure Law category. The state’s
disclosure law requires candidates to report
details, including occupation and employer
data, about contributors giving in excess of
$200. Contributions made at the last minute
have to be reported prior to Election Day,
but late independent expenditures do not. Candidates
are required to report basic information about
their expenses (such as payee and date made),
but not subvendor payments, accrued expenditures,
or descriptions of their expenses. Despite
legislative attempts to mandate electronic
filing, Mississippi lacks an electronic filing
program. However, the state is in the process
of developing a voluntary program for candidates,
scheduled to begin in 2008.
Online
access to campaign disclosure records is
limited to scanned documents in Mississippi,
earning the state an F again in 2007 in the
accessibility category. The state’s
main deficiency in the area of online disclosure
is the lack of searchable databases of campaign
contributions or expenses. Mississippi does
post scanned files online quickly for all statewide
and legislative candidates as far back as 1995,
but since the data is found in static (and
often large) PDF and TIFF files, locating specific
contributions is difficult, and sorting or
downloading data into a spreadsheet is not
possible. While campaign data is not available
on disk, the state does offer excellent access
to paper copies of disclosure reports.
Mississippi
performed poorly in the 2007 web site usability
testing, dropping the state from a D to an
F in the usability category. Testers had
more trouble finding the disclosure site
from the state’s homepage than in
the past, and rated their overall experience
on the site slightly lower than in 2005. Mississippi
does provide a good amount of contextual information
on its disclosure site, including candidate
listings, descriptions of which reports are
online, and details about reporting requirements
and restrictions. The site does not provide
information about the total amounts raised
and spent by candidates for a particular office.
The index of a candidate’s reports no
longer allows the public to browse the name
of contributors who made last-minute contributions,
a feature that was highlighted in the 2005
assessment.
→ Quick
Fix: Provide a list of
the total amounts raised and spent
by individual candidates for each
office.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: A
simple, informative “2007
Campaign Finance Reporting Schedule” is
easily found on the site. View image
 Disclosure Agency: Secretary of State
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.sos.state.ms.us
|
