Grade |
Rank |
D |
26 |
Subcategories | Grade
|
Rank
|
Campaign Disclosure Law | B
|
8
|
Electronic Filing Program | C
|
10
|
Disclosure Content Accessibility | F
|
32
|
Online Contextual & Technical Usability | F
|
41
|
Grading
Process Subcategory
Weighting
Methodology
Glossary
The State of Disclosure in Missouri Although it received a passing grade, Missouri's campaign finance disclosure program has significant room for improvement. While it has one of the strongest campaign finance disclosure laws in the country, Missouri's poor performance in Disclosure Content Accessibility and web site usability brings down its overall grade. Missouri law requires candidates to file quarterly reports in non-election years and one report before each election. Contributor information, including occupation and employer, must be disclosed for all contributions greater than $100. Last-minute contributions greater than $250, received within the last twelve days prior to an election, must be reported within 48 hours of being received. Details about expenditures greater than $100 must also be disclosed, but subvendor information is not required to be reported. Electronic filing is mandatory for statewide candidates and voluntary for legislative candidates. Missouri does not make campaign finance data very accessible to the public. Although Missouri has electronic filing, it does not have databases of contributions or expenditures online and there is no sorting or downloading of data available. There are scanned reports available, but they can be difficult to view because the site requires the use of proprietary software, called Acorde, which does not work on some computers. Missouri
could also improve the usability of its web site. There
is some good contextual information on the site, including
some historical campaign finance trend information and
an explanation of the campaign finance laws in the state.
Unfortunately, the campaign finance overview information
is not available for elections that were held after 1999.
It is also difficult to determine which campaign finance
records can be found on the site. The technical usability of
the site has some weaknesses, including a lack of
instructions about how to use it and poor searching and
navigating functions on the main state web site that make it
hard to find the disclosure agency's site. Missouri's campaign
disclosure site failed the usability test. Some usability testers
were able to locate the Missouri Ethics web site, but
could not find or access any data on contributions.
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This page was first published on September 17, 2003 | Last updated on September 17, 2003
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