Are you interested in learning more about who is opening up their pocketbooks for your favored political candidate? Or perhaps you’d like to do a little digging into who’s backing their rival?

The Delaware Campaign Finance Reporting System has a wealth of information about candidates for state office, but it’s a little (or perhaps more than a little) confusing to navigate. Here are some tips to get you up to speed.

But first, here is a little background on the campaign finance records.

Who is required to file campaign finance report?

The state keeps campaign finance records for all candidates for public office in the state, from candidates running for a statewide office like governor all the way down to contests to be a member on your local school board.

For almost all races, political committees* whose election cycle contributions (think things like gifts, loans and similar “things of value”) and expenditures (includes payments by or on behalf of a candidate) exceed $500 are required to file campaign finance reports. (It’s a little different with school board elections.)

*Political committees here refers to:

• Any group created in relation to a specific political campaign that accepts contributions from or makes expenditures to candidates, committees formed on behalf of candidates and/or political parties — if those activities exceed that $500 amount.
• Political parties and candidate committees. (These organizations are themselves considered to be political committees, per state law)

Who is responsible for handling those reports?

The Delaware Department of Elections.

What’s in these reports?

A whole lot, including:

• Information such as cash and other assets on hand at the beginning of the reporting period
• The full name and mailing address of donors who contributed more than $100
• The same information for people to whom the committee has made expenditures exceeding $100
• Same as above for transfers of money between political committees no matter the amount, as well as the amount and dates of those transfers.
• A list of goods and services that were provided in kind or cost less than the going market price for such items

When are reports filed?

It depends. The state has a handy (if dense) table for keeping track of reporting deadlines. For one common example, for general elections, incumbents’ candidate committees need to file reports on Dec. 31 of the year before an election year, as well as for the election year itself. Those committees are also required to file additional reports 30 days and 8 days before any election.

Using the Delaware Campaign Finance Reporting System

Finance reports as well as separate lists of contributions/loans and expenditures/debts incurred can be found on left side of the landing page for the reporting system website.

When combing through campaign finance reports, it’s better to start with a more general search, before gradually incorporating additional filter options if your first search yields too many results.

That’s because system can be a little finicky, returning no results when you would think you would get pages’ worth, depending on what combinations of dropdown boxes you use. (As of the time of writing, filtering a search to show reports for “State Office” in the Office Type dropdown menu for the past couple years will include Gov. John Carney’s filings, but if then if you specify “Governor” under Office Sought and hit search again, nothing shows up.)

If you’re interested in learning about all the candidates for a specific race, one reliable way to start your search is by filling out these options, in order from less specific to more specific:

1. Filed date range (Be sure to fill out the start and end date. Broaden it if you’re not getting what you’re looking for.)
2. Office Type, e.g. “County Office”
3. County/Municipality, e.g. “Sussex County”
4. Office Sought, e.g. “County Executive” (Office Sought works as you’d expect a lot of the time, but not always, as explained above)

If one of these steps causes your search results to go blank, undo what you just did and try experimenting with other parameters.

If you’re more interested in filings related to a specific candidate, try starting your search like this:

1. Filed Date Range
2. Committee Name (Try searching for the candidate’s last name, letter by letter. You will start to see autofilled results, but resist clicking on any: you’ll only see filings for that one committee. It’s better to just search for the candidate by a part or all of their last name.

Best of luck with your digging.