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 …
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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:
Who is responsible for handling those reports?
The Delaware Department of Elections.
What’s in these reports?
A whole lot, including:
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:
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:
Best of luck with your digging.