New
Hampshire launched a voluntary electronic
filing program for candidates in 2006,
boosting the state’s ranking both
in that category and overall, though the
state still received an F in 2007.
New
Hampshire again received a B- in the
Campaign Disclosure Law category. Candidates
are required to report details about
contributors giving $25 or more, including
occupation and employer data for those
contributing more than $100. Disclosure
of loan details is minimal, and expenditure
reports do not include subvendor or accrued
expenditures. Both last-minute contributions
and independent expenditures must be
reported prior to Election Day. After
debuting a voluntary electronic filing
program in 2006, the Secretary of State’s
office determined that the usability
and security of the system should be
enhanced for future reporting; the program
has been temporarily taken offline while
these issues are addressed.
At
present, access to campaign filings in
New Hampshire is poor, as reflected in
the state’s F for Disclosure Content
Accessibility. Disclosure reports are still
scanned but recent filings are posted as
PDFs, an improvement over the past use
of TIFF images that required special software
to view. The site does not offer the ability
to sort, download or search campaign data,
and House candidates’ reports are
not available online at all. This may change
once the electronic filing system is operating
again, since it previously featured a searchable
campaign finance database.
Despite
a new design, New Hampshire’s
disclosure site still rated very poorly
in 2007 in the area of Online Contextual
and Technical Usability. The state again
earned the lowest possible rating for the
usability test in 2007, as testers continued
to report an overall lack of confidence
in the information on the site, confusion
over terminology, and general dissatisfaction
with their experience on the site. There
is no overview information comparing candidates’ campaign
finance activity, nor does the site provide
a good explanation of which disclosure
records are available online or how to
access the data.
→ Quick
Fix: Improve the public’s
ability to find campaign
finance information by
making the link for “Receipts
and Expenditures” more
prominent, and possibly
re-labeling that link as “View
Campaign Receipts and Expenditures”.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: A chart
showing spending limits and penalties
for exceeding those limits. View
image
