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The State of Disclosure in South Carolina
South
Carolina earned a C, ranked 33rd in 2008,
and was the second most improved state overall
since 2003, when the state earned an F and
was ranked 49th. South Carolina also earned
its first passing grade in the accessibility
category in 2008 and improved from a D- to
a D in the usability category since the 2007
assessment.
South
Carolina earned a C in the disclosure law
category and ranked 35th in this area in
2008. Candidates are required to itemize
contributions over $100, but occupation and
employer data are not required to be disclosed.
Campaigns must record their donors’ occupation
data, but the law does not require this information
to be disclosed to the public. Disclosure of
loan details is strong, and candidates must
report campaign expenditures over $100, including
subvendor payments and accrued expenditures.
Independent expenditures are reported, but
neither last-minute independent expenditures
nor last-minute contributions are disclosed
prior to Election Day. South Carolina expanded
its mandatory electronic filing program to
cover legislative candidates in late 2007 (the
mandatory program for statewide candidates
began in 2006). This move earned the state
an A+ and a top ranking in the Electronic Filing
Program category, up from 27th place and a
C in 2007.
South
Carolina was the third most improved state
in the accessibility category since 2003,
and earned a C- and ranked 31st in 2008. Since
the 2007 assessment, legislative candidates’ disclosure
reports were posted online for the first time
and the Ethics Commission debuted an online,
searchable database of campaign expenditures.
The public can now search the itemized expenditures
of a single candidate by date, and can limit
their searches to a minimum amount.
This new feature could be improved by allowing
the public to search across all records by
a specific name, as can be done
through the contributions database. Site visitors
can download itemized data directly from reports,
but cannot download database search results.
Only the expenditure search results can be
sorted online; contribution search results
cannot.
South
Carolina improved to a D in the Online Contextual
and Technical Usability category in 2008,
up from a D- in 2007. The Ethics Commission
site now features both original and clearly-labeled
amended disclosure reports and brief instructions
for using the site. South Carolina’s
usability test performance was slightly lower
in 2008 as testers reported more confusion
with the site than testers did in 2007. The
disclosure site’s main weakness is the
lack of contextual information available to
the public, such as the starting and ending
dates for each reporting period, overviews
of campaign finance trends in South Carolina,
and a list of candidates for current elections.
→ Quick
Fix: Add an explanation of
which candidates have reports available
online, what data is included,
and what time periods are covered
to give site visitors a better
sense of the scope of data available
on the disclosure web site.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Site design is very clean
and campaign data is presented in
a clear and easy to read format. View
image
 Disclosure Agency: State Ethics Commission
Disclosure
Web Site: http://ethics.sc.gov
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