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The State of Disclosure in Rhode Island
Rhode Island earned a B again in 2008 while
also earning the same grade in each of the
four scoring categories as in 2007. Rhode Island
has earned a grade in the A range in the Disclosure
Content Accessibility category in each of the
five Grading State Disclosure assessments conducted
since 2003.
Rhode
Island’s disclosure law earned
a C again, and ranked 33rd in 2008. Candidates
must report detailed information about contributors
giving at least $100, including donors’ employers
but not their occupations. Expenditures over
$100 must be itemized, but reports do not include
information on subvendor expenses. Independent
expenditure disclosure is strong, and last-minute
expenditures must be reported before elections,
unlike last-minute contributions, which are
not disclosed until after Election Day for
candidates who do not use public financing.
Rhode Island earned an A+ and top ranking again
in the electronic filing category in 2008.
Electronic filing is mandatory for all statewide
candidates in Rhode Island, and for legislative
candidates who raise $10,000. With the mandate
for legislative candidates first fully implemented
in 2007, the Board of Elections has increased
the amount of training available to filers,
offering both online resources and individualized
trainings.
Rhode Island earned an A in 2008 and has ranked
in the top five in the accessibility category
in each of the five assessments. The public
has immediate, online access to electronically-filed
reports, and paper-filed reports are scanned
and available online within 48 hours, down
from the five days reported in 2007. The Board
of Elections’ site features comprehensive,
searchable databases of contributions and expenditures
that contain records from both electronic reports
and paper-filed reports that have been data-entered
by agency staff. Users can search multiple
fields and can both sort the data online or
download it for offline analysis. The expenditures
database could be enhanced with the addition
of a field to search expenditures by purpose.
Since
2003, Rhode Island has improved from an F
to a C+ in the area of web site usability.
In 2008, Rhode Island earned the same rating
on the usability test as in 2007, with most
testers reporting confidence in the data found
on the site despite also reporting some confusion
with the terminology used. The Board of Elections’ site
features an excellent index of each candidate’s
reports that includes both original and amended
reports, the starting and ending dates for
each reporting period, due dates for upcoming
reporting periods, and financial summaries
of the most recently filed report. The site
could be made more user-friendly with overviews
of campaign financing trends that compare totals
raised and spent by competing candidates, as
well as a detailed explanation of the data
available on the site.
→ Quick
Fix: Add an overview describing
which candidates have reports available
online, what data is included, and
what time periods are covered to
give site visitors a better sense
of the scope of data on the disclosure
web site.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: The index
of a candidate’s reports
shows the reporting period, due
date, and the actual date that
each report was submitted, as well
as future reporting dates and a
financial summary of the most recent
reporting period. View
image
 Disclosure Agency: Board of Elections
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.elections.state.ri.us
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