North
Carolina improved from a D+ to a C+ overall,
with one of the highest single category
improvements in 2007. By adding a database
for searching campaign contributions
and expenditures, North Carolina’s
Disclosure Content Accessibility grade
soared from an F to an A and earned a top
five ranking in 2007.
North
Carolina’s strong disclosure
law earned a B again in 2007. Candidates
must report detailed information about
contributors, including occupation and
employer data. In 2006, the threshold for
reporting itemized contributions was reduced
from $100 to $50 and is now in line with
the threshold for campaign expense reporting.
Candidates must disclose the date and recipient
of all payments, including subvendor details.
The law requires examinations of campaign
records; however, a significant backlog
has been reported by the media as a result
of limited staff resources largely being
taken up by data-entering paper-filed reports
prior to conducting audits. The state requires
electronic filing by statewide candidates
who raise $5,000, but no such mandate exists
for legislative candidates and less than
one-third have used this option.
The
addition of a searchable database of
contributions and expenditures to the
State Board of Elections (SBOE) web site
greatly improved online access to campaign
data in North Carolina, boosting the state’s
ranking in this area from 35th in 2005
to 4th in 2007. Itemized data from both
electronic filings and reports data-entered
by SBOE staff can be searched by a wide
range of fields. If users don’t know
the exact spelling for a search term, the
site offers a “sounds like” option.
Search results can also be downloaded into
a spreadsheet file for offline analysis.
Electronic filings are posted online within
a day of receipt, and paper-filed reports
are scanned and posted online as PDFs,
usually within two days.
The
state’s Online Contextual and
Technical Usability grade dropped into
the F range, with a slightly lower performance
in the 2007 usability test. While testers
expressed higher confidence in the accuracy
of the data on the site than in 2005, locating
the disclosure site from the state’s
homepage was more difficult in 2007. The
SBOE site contains good contextual information,
including candidate lists, and a campaign
finance manual that explains the state’s
disclosure requirements and contribution
limits. The public would also benefit from
additional information, such as side-by-side
candidate fundraising and spending totals
for a specific election and a description
of the universe of data available online.
→ Quick
Fix: Add information describing
whose reports are available online,
what data is included, and what
time periods are covered to give
site visitors a better sense of
the scope of data on the disclosure
web site.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: The contribution
database’s “Advanced
Search” offers users a wide
variety of search options, as well
as clearly visible instructions and
optional “sounds like” search
features. View
image
