Committees involved in an election must also file pre and post election reports and often must report certain financial activity within 24 or 48 hours of occurance. Filings may be monthly, quarterly or semi-annual depending on committee type and whether or not in an election year. Filing activities follow timelines and processes separate from day-to-day campaign activities: filing deadlines are defined in the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), and depend on the type of committee. Participants in the the campaign finance (candidates, committees, parties, and PACs) process have a complex set of processes to manage: courting voters, working with candidates, recruiting donors, raising and collecting money, using it to pay for campaign related expenses, and balancing their checkbooks. Ultimately, errors impact the timeliness and accuracy of data available to the public.įiling is just one element of the complex campaign fundraising processes When filers make mistakes or misunderstand form fields, their errors have repercussions through the entire data ecosystem: data entry errors create a greater processing burden on the EFO and heavier workload for FEC Personnel, both of which can lead to delays in data becoming publicly available. During this study, we learned that many data quality issues can be traced back to confusing elements in the filers’ experience when they are preparing information for the FEC. At the same time that the report is being reviewed, it is made publicly available so data consumers (including journalists and the general public) can access it through the FEC’s website, API, and bulk data offerings.įEC has been a pioneer in open data, but some data available on the FEC website remains difficult for journalists, researchers and others to use.The data is also augmented with helpful codes, like committee IDs and type descriptions. The data in these reports passes through the Electronic Filing Office (EFO) and then moves on to the Reports Analysis Division (RAD), where algorithms and analysts review the report and check for errors and discrepancies.Each committee or committee’s designee tracks the flow of funds and then reports this information to the FEC using paper forms, vendor software, or the FEC’s filing software, FECFile.
Our understanding of the way campaign finance information flows through the e-filing ecosystem is depicted in Figure 1.įigure 1.
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