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The State of Disclosure in South Dakota
South
Dakota has earned an F in each of the five
Grading State Disclosure assessments conducted
since 2003, and ranked 48th again in 2008.
South Dakota’s highest grade was a D+
in the Online Contextual and Technical Usability
category, though the state dropped eleven places
in the usability rankings since 2007.
While
the state strengthened its disclosure law
in 2007, South Dakota’s reforms did
not go far enough to earn a passing law grade
in 2008. The state now requires the disclosure
of independent expenditures, and candidates
face a daily $50 fine for missing reporting
deadlines. However, the new law did not address
the state’s weak campaign contribution
and expenditure reporting requirements. South
Dakota is the only state that does not require
candidates to report the dates of campaign
contributions and, further, the state’s
contribution reporting form was revised so
that the employers of campaign contributors
are no longer disclosed (occupation disclosure
is also not required). Expenditure disclosure
is minimal: South Dakota is one of just two
states that do not require the name of campaigns’ payees
to be disclosed, and one of only three states
that do not require the dates of campaign expenses
to be reported. Additionally, South Dakota
earned an F and the lowest ranking in the Electronic
Filing Program category as one of eight states
that does not operate an electronic filing
program.
South
Dakota received an F in the Disclosure Content
Accessibility category again and ranked 49th
in 2008. The Secretary of State’s
office posts all statewide and legislative
candidates’ disclosure reports online
within 24 hours of receipt, but access to disclosure
data is limited to scanned copies of paper-filed
reports. Site visitors can browse itemized
contributions within the reports, but cannot
search, sort, or download the data, and expenditures
are not itemized within reports. Rather, all
expenditures are totaled and reported by categories
such as advertising, consulting, or postage.
The public can purchase paper copies of disclosure
reports for $1.00 per page, which is the highest
fee for copies charged by any state (Alabama
also charges $1.00).
Despite
earning a D+ again in 2008, South Dakota
dropped from 24th to 35th in the usability
rankings as other states improved. While the
state earned a slightly higher rating on the
2008 usability test, most usability testers
continue to report confusion with the site
and rated their overall experiences unfavorably.
Additionally, researchers found accessing campaign
finance data by searching and navigating from
the state homepage to be more difficult than
in 2007. As noted in past assessments, the
Secretary of State’s site features a
good amount of contextual information, including
summaries of campaign finance activity, information
about disclosure requirements, detailed candidate
lists, and copies of both original and amended
disclosure reports.
→ Quick
Fix: Add the starting and
ending date for each reporting period
within the index of a candidate’s
reports.
♦ Editor’s
Pick: The index
of a candidate’s reports
clearly labels amended reports,
and users can sort the index by
clicking on the column headings. View image
 Disclosure Agency: Secretary of State
Disclosure Web Site: http://www.sdsos.gov
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