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The State of Disclosure in New York
New York improved from a B- to a B
and ranked 16th again in 2008. The
state has made significant gains since
earning a D in 2003, including improving
from a C+ to a B- in the usability
category since the 2007 assessment.
New York earned a C again
in 2008 and ranked 30th in the disclosure
law category. The law requires that
candidates disclose the name and address
of contributors who give $100 or more,
but does not require occupation and
employer data to be reported. Details
of expenditures over $49 must be disclosed,
including subvendor information and
accrued expenditures. Independent expenditures
are also reported, including the name
of the candidate on whose behalf the
expenditure is made. New York earned
an A+ and a share of the top electronic
filing ranking again in 2008. Statewide
and legislative candidates who raise
$1,000 must file their disclosure reports
electronically with the State Board
of Elections. The agency expanded its
filer training program in 2008 to include
a new filer education and training
unit with four new staff positions
to assist filers.
New
York has earned an A- in the Disclosure
Content Accessibility category in
each of the last two assessments
and ranked 14th this year. The disclosure
web site features searchable databases
of campaign contributions and expenditures
that contain both electronically-filed
reports and paper-filed reports that
have been data-entered by agency staff.
The databases can be searched by date,
transaction amount, and by the name
of an individual donor or payee,
and search results can be sorted
online. Site visitors
can download disclosure data for
an entire filing period; giving users
the ability to also download database
search results would be useful. The
State Board of Elections’ web
site was redesigned in 2008 and a committee
has been formed to identify ways to
improve both the accessibility and
usability of the site by the end of
the year.
New
York improved from a C+ to a B- in
the Online Contextual and Technical
Usability category with an improved
usability test performance in 2008.
Usability testers expressed better
understanding and greater confidence
in New York’s disclosure site
in 2008 than testers did in 2007. The
site features a good amount of contextual information,
including detailed candidate lists, overviews
for comparing totals raised and spent by candidates,
and an explanation of which candidates have
reports available online. As
the site is being reviewed for improvements this
year, the agency should consider displaying the
starting and ending dates for each report within
the index of a candidate’s
reports, and clearly labeling any reports
that have been amended.
→ Quick
Fix: Provide
the starting and ending
date for each reporting period
shown in the index of a candidate’s
reports.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: Each candidate’s
report index page provides
users with the ability to
search that candidate’s
specific contributors, or
for all contributions above
a certain amount. View
image
 Disclosure Agency: State Board of Elections
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.elections.state.ny.us
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