The State of Disclosure in New Hampshire
New
Hampshire earned a passing grade for the
first time in 2008 and was one of the five
most improved states since 2007.
The addition of an online, searchable database
of campaign contributions helped the state
move up eleven places in the accessibility
category, despite again earning an F in this
category.
New
Hampshire earned a B- in the Campaign Disclosure
Law category in each of the five assessments
and ranked 21st in this area in 2008. Candidates
must report details about contributors giving
$25 or more, including occupation and employer
data for those contributing more than $100.
Reporting of campaign expenditures is weak
in comparison, with no subvendor or accrued
expenditures disclosed. Independent expenditures
are reported, and both last-minute independent
expenditures and last-minute contributions
are reported prior to Election Day. Electronic
filing initially debuted in New Hampshire
in 2006 but the system was taken offline
due to usability and security issues. The
state reintroduced its voluntary electronic
filing program in 2008 and ranked 38th in
this area.
New
Hampshire earned an F again in the Disclosure
Content Accessibility category in 2008.
The Secretary of State’s
web site features scanned copies of disclosure
reports that have been filed on paper by
candidates for statewide or senate offices;
house candidates’ reports are not
accessible online. With the reintroduction
of electronic filing in 2008, electronically-filed
data is available through a new online,
searchable database of contributions. While
not much electronic data had come online
by the close of this study’s assessment
period, the database allows the public
to search electronic records for individual
donors by name and contribution amount.
Additionally, search results can be sorted
online or downloaded to a spreadsheet for
offline analysis.
New
Hampshire earned its fifth F in the area
of Online Contextual and Technical Usability
and ranked 49th in 2008. Usability testers
again rated the Secretary of State’s
disclosure site poorly and again reported
a lack of confidence in the information
on the site and confusion over the site’s
terminology. Although the new campaign
finance database provides instructions,
the majority of disclosure data is contained
in a section of the site that does not.
The site also does not contain comparisons
of campaign finance activity among candidates
and paper-filed reports are presented with
very little information about what reports
are and are not accessible online.
→ Quick
Fix : Add a page to
the site describing which
candidates have campaign
data available online,
the time periods covered,
and instructions for accessing
the data online either
through the main site or
the electronic disclosure
search pages.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Database
search results are cleanly presented
and easy to sort or download. View
image
Disclosure Agency: Department of State
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.sos.nh.gov
|