Nebraska received an F for the fourth
time in the Grading State Disclosure assessments,
and dropped slightly in the rankings from
39th to 41st overall. The state improved
two places in the rankings in the web site
usability category, but dropped in each
of the remaining areas as other states
improved.
Nebraska’s
disclosure law requires candidates to
report detailed information about contributors
giving more than $250, but does not require
occupation or employer data to be disclosed.
Large, last-minute contributions and
independent expenditures (over $1,000)
are reported before Election Day. Candidates
must also account for all campaign expenses
over $250, including the name of the
payee, date paid and purpose for the
expense. Nebraska is one of just ten
states without an electronic filing program
for candidates. The state is developing
an electronic filing program for non-candidate
political committee reports, and may consider
expanding the system in the future to allow
candidates to file their campaign reports
electronically as well.
Nebraska earned an F for Disclosure Content
Accessibility again in 2007. The Nebraska
Accountability and Disclosure Commission
(NADC) data-enters all records filed on
paper and offers the ability to search
non-individual contributors online, such
as businesses or organizations. The public
can only find individual donors or itemized
expenditures by browsing disclosure reports.
Data within reports cannot be sorted or
downloaded for offline research.
Nebraska’s
disclosure site was given a very nice
redesign since the last assessment and
the result is a clean, attractive web
site. The state added slightly more contextual
information, causing a small bump up in
the rankings from 50th to 48th in 2007,
though the state again earned an F in this
category. Even with the new look, Nebraska
earned the same rating in the 2007 usability
tests as in 2005. Testers again rated their
experiences as below average. Despite the
changes, the site still lacks some key
pieces of information to help the public
place individual campaigns in a larger
context. For instance, the alphabetical
listing of all candidates makes it difficult
for the public to identify all candidates
for a specific office.
→ Quick
Fix: Provide a link to a listing
of candidates on the “View
Campaign Filings” page that
allows site visitors to easily see
all candidates for a particular office
or district.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Clean,
attractive design of the NADC site. View
image
