The State of Disclosure in Alaska
Alaska
has earned a grade in the C range in each of
the five Grading State Disclosure assessments
conducted since 2003, and ranked 30th in 2008.
Alaska improved from a C+ to a B- in the Online
Contextual and Technical Usability category since
2007. Additional gains to the state’s overall
disclosure program can be expected when electronic
filing becomes mandatory in 2009.
Alaska’s
disclosure law, average by this study’s
standards, requires candidates to report the
name and address of their contributors and,
for those contributing $250 or more, occupation
and employer data. Subvendor disclosure is not
required, but candidates must report the name
of the recipient, and the purpose for, and date
of, all expenditures made or accrued. Independent
expenditure disclosure remains a weak point in
the law as last-minute expenditures are not disclosed
prior to Election Day. Currently, electronic
filing is optional in Alaska, and just 15 percent
of candidates do so voluntarily. With the passage
of House Bill 109 in 2007, electronic filing
will be mandatory for all statewide and legislative
candidates regardless of the amount raised or
spent starting in 2009. To handle the transition,
the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC)
is developing a new online filing system for
candidates.
Access
to campaign finance records has not changed
in Alaska in the last year and the state earned
a B- again in the Disclosure Content Accessibility
category in 2008. The APOC’s web site features
electronically-filed disclosure reports and reports
filed on paper that have been data-entered by
agency staff. The disclosure site features searchable
databases of campaign contributions and expenditures,
and data can be sorted online or downloaded for
offline analysis. As noted in the 2007 assessment,
the site’s best feature, a comprehensive
database search tool, might be missed by site
visitors since it is last on a list of eleven
search options and presented with a non-descript
label of “Ad Hoc Query”.
The
APOC’s web site has been redesigned
since the 2007 assessment and usability testers
responded favorably, returning the state to the
B range in the usability category. The site reorganization
allows for easier navigation and includes a helpful “How
Do I …?” menu that offers choices
for both the public and candidates. The site
also contains helpful contextual information
such as campaign finance rules and regulations,
and the index of a candidate’s reports
clearly displays the reporting period and whether
reports have been amended. To further enhance
the usability of the site, specific instructions
could be added to describe the capabilities of
the searchable databases, and how to extract
data from them.
→ Quick
Fix: Provide information
about the various database search
capabilities and rename the “Ad
Hoc Query”.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Overviews
of campaign
finance disclosure data for all candidates. View
image
 Disclosure Agency: Alaska Public Offices Commission
Disclosure
Web Site: http://www.state.ak.us/local/akpages/ADMIN/apoc/home.html
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