Although
West Virginia received an F, it did get a C+ for its
Campaign Disclosure Law and ranked 18th in usability.
West Virginia's most significant weaknesses lie in Electronic
Filing and Disclosure Content Accessibility.
West
Virginia requires candidates to file annual non-election
year reports and two reports before each election. Details
must be disclosed about all contributors, but occupation and
employer information is only required for contributions of $250
or more. Last-minute contributions are not disclosed until
after the election. All expenditures must be reported,
but subvendor information does not have to be disclosed. Independent
expenditures and last-minute independent expenditures have to
be disclosed prior to an election. West Virginia does
not have electronic filing.
West
Virginia has significant room to improve its efforts
to make campaign finance information accessible to the public. Paper
records are scanned and posted to the web site within four days
of being received. It is possible to browse an index of
a candidate's reports and view itemized transactions within a
report, but there are no searchable databases of contributions
or expenditures on the site. The state will provide a
disk with scanned copies of campaign finance reports to
members of the public upon request.
West
Virginia's site is a bit difficult to use, given that
there is not much information on it. Reports for each
election year are available in different places and users
have to search on more than one screen to find reports
for candidates. It might be better to provide a comprehensive
list of candidates by office and then link to reports
from that list. The site does provide some good contextual
information to the public, including an explanation of the
state's campaign finance restrictions and law, a comprehensive
list of candidates for recent elections, an explanation of
which campaign finance reports are online, and the posting
of both original filings and amended reports. The clear labeling
of disclosure reporting periods within candidates' reports,
and lists of the total amounts raised and spent by state candidates
could make the site better.
