Grade |
Rank |
C |
7 |
Subcategories | Grade
|
Rank
|
Campaign Disclosure Law | B-
|
15
|
Electronic Filing Program | D
|
17
|
Disclosure Content Accessibility | B+
|
8
|
Online Contextual & Technical Usability | F
|
24
|
Grading
Process Subcategory
Weighting
Methodology
Glossary
The State of Disclosure in Florida Florida ranked in the top ten in the study even though it only received an overall grade of a C. Its strengths lie in its campaign disclosure law and accessibility to campaign finance information. Improvements could be made to its electronic filing program and the contextual and technical usability of its web site. Florida law requires candidates to file quarterly statements in non-election years and two statements before each election. For each contribution, details about contributors are required to be reported and a contributor's occupation must be disclosed for contributions of more than $100. Candidates do not report information about a contributor's employer. Candidates must report details, including subvendor information, about all expenditures. Independent expenditures must be reported, but last-minute independent expenditures are not disclosed before the election. Florida has a mandatory electronic filing program, but this mandate is automatically waived by the Division of Elections for candidates who state that they are unable to file electronically. Florida does a very good job of making campaign finance information available to the public. All campaign finance data is posted on the disclosure agency's web site within one week of being filed. Since campaign finance data is either electronically filed or data-entered by agency staff, all the data is available in the searchable databases of contributions and expenditures on the site. Florida's databases also have a unique feature in which it is possible for site users to search by “name sounds like”. In addition, there is an option to search for the total amount raised by an individual candidate in a particular election year, and an option to download search results. The
contextual usability of Florida's site could be better, partly
because it does not offer complete reports for individual candidates
that can be browsed. The lack of browsable
reports means it is not possible to see when amendments have
been made to campaign finance reports. The site does not
offer a list of committees with the total amounts raised and
spent by each candidate in recent elections. The usability
testing also reflected the poor usability of the site.
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This page was first published on September 17, 2003 | Last updated on September 17, 2003
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