Mississippi's overall rank and grade show that its campaign
finance disclosure program has significant room for improvement,
especially in Electronic Filing and Disclosure Content Accessibility.
Mississippi has an average campaign finance disclosure law. Candidates
must file one statement in non-election years and four statements
before an election. Candidates must disclose information
about contributors, including occupations and employers, for
those who give more than $200. Last-minute contributions
are required to be reported prior to an election. Information
about expenditures over $200 must be reported, but subvendor
information is not required to be disclosed. Independent
expenditures must be disclosed, but last-minute independent expenditures
are not required to be reported before an election. Mississippi
does not have an electronic filing system for statewide or legislative
candidates.
The state has significant room for improvement in making campaign
finance disclosure records available to the public. Mississippi's
lack of even voluntary electronic filing contributes to its poor
performance in this category. While there are scanned
campaign finance reports on its web site, the absence of a database
means that campaign finance information may only be accessed
in limited ways.
Mississippi performed better in web site usability. There
is fairly good contextual information on its web site, including
thorough explanations of the state's campaign finance laws. The
terminology on the site is very clear and there is good information
about which campaign finance reports are posted online and which
candidates are running for office. The site could be improved
with lists of the total amounts raised and spent by state candidates
and by retaining original campaign finance reports online even
after amendments have been posted. Mississippi did well
in the usability testing.
