Nebraska has received an F in each of
the five Grading State Disclosure assessments
since 2003, and ranked 42nd in 2008. Nebraska
also earned an F in three of the four scoring
categories in each year of the assessment.
Nebraska’s disclosure law ranked
24th and earned a C+ again in 2008. The
law requires candidates to itemize contributions
of $250 or more by name and date, but does
not require contributors’ occupation
or employer data to be disclosed. Expenditure
disclosure is stronger, with transactions
over $250 itemized, including those made
by subvendors on behalf of a campaign.
Large, last-minute contributions and independent
expenditures are reported prior to Election
Day. The Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure
Commission (NADC) launched an electronic
filing program for non-candidate committees
in 2008 and is considering adding electronic
filing for candidates in the next election
cycle.
Nebraska
earned an F in the accessibility category
again in 2008. The NADC’s
staff data-enters all disclosure records
filed on paper, resulting in clean HTML
displays of candidates’ reports.
The disclosure site features a searchable
database of contributions, but it contains
only non-individual donors, such as businesses
or organizations. The public can only find
individual donors or itemized expenditures
by browsing complete disclosure reports.
Although the disclosure reports are displayed
in an HTML format, itemized data within
reports cannot be sorted online or downloaded
for offline research.
Despite
an improved performance on the 2008 usability
test, Nebraska again failed to earn a
passing grade in the Online Contextual
and Technical Usability category. Usability
testers were able to perform their tasks
more quickly than in 2007, and testers
reported higher levels of confidence in
the data found on the site in 2008. The
main shortcoming of Nebraska’s disclosure
site is the lack of information available
to provide the public with an understanding
of candidates’ disclosure data. To
improve in this area, the NADC could post
a clear description of which candidates
and reports are accessible on the disclosure
site and instructions for accessing the
data, provide online access to both original
and amended reports, and publish overviews
comparing the totals raised and spent by
candidates for a specific office.
→ Quick
Fix: Add a page to the site describing
which candidates have reports available
online, the time periods covered,
and instructions for accessing the
data online.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: HTML displays
of campaign disclosure records
that have been data-entered are
cleaner and easier to read than
if the state simply offered scanned
copies of paper reports. View
image