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The State of Disclosure in Colorado
Colorado achieved its highest grade and
rank in 2008, earning a B and a top ten ranking.
Colorado was one of the most improved states
in 2007 and continued the positive trend
with gains made in both the electronic filing
and web site usability categories in 2008.
Colorado’s strong disclosure law earned
an A- and ranked fifth overall in 2008. Colorado
law requires campaigns to report details
about all donors giving $20 or more, including
occupation and employer data for contributions
of $100 or more. Candidates are also required
to itemize their expenses, though subvendor
details are not reported. Independent expenditure
disclosure is strong, and includes last-minute
reporting. While the Secretary of State’s
office had reported inadequate funding in
previous assessments, in 2008 the agency
reported that funding is adequate and Colorado’s
electronic filing program earned an A+ and
a first place ranking. The Secretary of State
implemented an administrative rule in 2007
to make electronic filing mandatory for both
statewide and legislative candidates and
is preparing to debut a new filing system
in 2009.
Colorado
earned its fourth straight B- and ranked
23rd in 2008 in the Disclosure Content
Accessibility category. Along with the
new filing system, Colorado is scheduled
to launch a new disclosure web site in
2009. Currently, the disclosure site features
electronically-filed reports and the Secretary
of State’s
staff both scans and data-enters paper-filed
reports for online access. Site visitors
can search databases of campaign contributions
by donor name and transaction date and amount,
but not by donor employer or zip code. The
expenditure database allows for name, date,
and amount searches and could be enhanced
with a field for searching by expenditure
purpose. Database search results can be sorted
online, but not downloaded. However, site
visitors can download larger files of all
contributions and expenditures made in each
quarter of the year.
After
earning a D+ in the usability category
in 2007, Colorado earned a C+ by improving
the terminology and navigation on the Secretary
of State’s disclosure site, which also
performed better on the usability test in
2008. Testers rated their experience on the
site more favorably since the changes, which
included clearer links to the searchable
campaign finance databases and disclosure
reports. The site features an excellent description
of the data available online, including a
listing of the specific offices and time
periods covered. The site could be further
improved with tools to allow users to compare
the totals raised and spent by competing
candidates and by providing the starting
and ending dates for disclosure reporting
periods within the index of a candidate’s
reports.
→ Quick
Fix: Provide a simple comparison of the totals
raised and spent by candidates for each
office in the most recent election.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: The disclosure
site offers a clear description
of which candidates have data
accessible on the Secretary
of State’s web site, and
when it becomes available to the
public. View
image
 Disclosure Agency: Secretary of State
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.sos.state.co.us
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