The Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission just unveiled their new electronic campaign reporting system (eCRIS) today to a crowd of about 100 people at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. To read the CTCC press release, click here.
If it lives up to the demonstration they gave, I think everyone -the media, advocates who probe into campaign contributions and even the campaigns themselves -- is going to be happy with this new system. First and foremost, it lets you download the campaign contribution data. That's key. There are a lot of good websites out there that let you search campaign contributors, political action committees, special interests, etc. But, in every follow-the-money research report I've done, I've needed the flexibility to sort and query the data in ways only a desktop application like Excel or Access can provide.
Connecticut's old system would only generate complete PDF documents of contributors, which was virtually impossible to import into a database. Also, it allows data to be uploaded. If a campaign is using a particular software product to manage the campaign, it can export the data to eCRIS and save the campaign from having to input the data or, if they file offline, fill out the paperwork.
Second, (and I'm taking Elections Enforcement at their word), it will be more stable than the old system. Anyone who used the old CFIS system knows it was prone to crashing, freezing or taking a ton of time to generate a one-page report. From what I've heard, stability was one of the biggest reasons campaigns chose not to file online.
Finally, it's user friendly. It's a lot like Quicken or TurboTax in that it will flag you if you are making a mistake or, more important, violating the law. I messed around in the eCRIS test site, and each time I tried to submit an incomplete form, it told me what I did or didn't do. That's going to be a useful tool for treasurers submitting Citizens Election Program qualifying contributions. If there is one thing missing or unchecked in a form, the state won't authorize an election grant. If a campaign files on paper, it could take days to fix the problem. This way, the campaign treasurer is alerted right away and the problem can be fixed.
Right now, campaigns can voluntarily use the system (only statewide campaigns that spend more than $250,000 have to file online.) Connecticut Common Cause and its coalition partners have been trying to lower the threshold for mandatory for a number of years with no success. I think if this system is as good as its demonstration, Connecticut may see 75 percent of campaigns using the online tools. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but eCRIS is really that good that it could generate that kind of participation.
