Major
improvement in the areas of Electronic
Filing, Disclosure Content Accessibility
and Online Contextual and Technical Usability
account for Georgia’s B and overall
rank of 4, which is up from a rank of 21
in 2003.
Georgia
still has one of the best campaign finance
disclosure laws in the country. Candidates
file semi-annual statements in non-election
years and more than three statements before
an election. A contributor’s
name, address, occupation, and employer
must be disclosed for any contribution
of $101 or more. Candidates must
report details about all expenditures of
$101 or more, but subvendor information
is not required. Last-minute independent
expenditures and contributions greater
than $1,000 must be reported prior to an
election. Georgia has mandatory electronic
filing for statewide candidates who reach
a threshold of $20,000, and legislative
candidates who reach a threshold of $10,000.
Access
to campaign finance data has improved
dramatically in Georgia, enough to raise
the state’s grade in that subcategory
from an F to an A-. Mandatory e-filing
for legislative candidates – new
in 2003 – means that more reports
are now searchable online and are also
made available on the Internet more quickly. The
Secretary of State’s web site features
a searchable database of contributions,
which now allows searches not only on contributor
name, but also on amount, date of contribution,
and contributor’s zip code and employer. Perhaps
the most important improvement in Disclosure
Content Accessibility is the addition of
a searchable database of expenditures that
can be searched by vendor name and expenditure
amount. Data can now be downloaded
from the site as well. All of these
changes combine to make Georgia the third
most improved state in the Disclosure Content
Accessibility category.
The
usability of the disclosure web site
has gotten better, but with a C, there
is still room for improvement. The
site does not provide any overview information
about campaign financing in Georgia and
needs a “data history” description
to help site users determine exactly which
records are available online. Campaign
finance reporting periods are not included
in the browsable reports display, and information
about campaign finance restrictions and
disclosure requirements is lacking. It
has become easier to locate the Secretary
of State’s site from the main state
web site, which may have contributed to
Georgia’s much-improved usability
testing score. Other highlights in
usability are improved terminology and
a comprehensive list of candidates online.
