By Kim Alexander
f you want to know where a candidate really stands on the issues, don’t listen to the stump speeches. Follow the money. Rhetoric can be adapted to fit the audience. Money can’t. Where it comes from and where it goes are irrefutable evidence of the candidate’s positions and alliances.
Historically, the problem has been that easy access to campaign finance information is usually not available until after the election – if ever. In the digital age, that may be changing. And in this election cycle, we helped it change in California.
Our recent experiment, the San Francisco Online Voter Guide, a project of the California Voter Foundation (CVF), showed how electronic filing of political disclosure records could dramatically improve public access to campaign contribution and expenditure information before the election. It’s one of the most sophisticated uses of database technology on the Internet to date. And there is every reason to think it signals a new trend in how voters and the media will learn about candidates’ campaigns in the future.
San Francisco is the site of a flourishing computer industry and a computer-savvy voter population. It’s also the only place in California where campaigns are required to file campaign finance disclosure reports on computer disk with the Registrar of Voters. That made it a logical place to set up a World Wide Web site for the public to punch up an online voter guide.
The site was launched on Oct. 10, 1995, four weeks before the Nov. 7 municipal election. It included information on the races for mayor (the much-watched race between incumbent Frank Jordan and former California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, who won), sheriff and district attorney, as well as on 15 local ballot measures. Information for our nonpartisan online guide was provided by the Registrar of Voters; the League of Women Voters of San Francisco; the “Voice of the Voter” civic journalism project of The San Francisco Chronicle, KRON-TV and KQED-FM, and several local newspapers.
Candidates were asked to submit biographies, up to five platform papers, an endorsement list, a photo, contact information and up to three news articles about themselves. The site also had links to other web sites, a digest of ballot measures, and arguments in support of and opposition to each measure.
The November election resulted in a runoff for the offices of mayor and sheriff. The CVF developed a second edition of the guide for those races.
How did we know if our web site was a success? In the first four weeks the guide was up, about 23,000 documents were retrieved. One out of every four retrievals was for campaign finance information, signaling that citizens were eager for this information.
Moreover, the site was named among the top five percent of all Internet sites by Point Survey in New York, and among the top 100 sites of 1995 by PC Magazine. The highest honor may have come from Yahoo, one of several Internet “search engines” with which the voter guide was indexed. Yahoo placed its coveted sun glasses icon next to the entry, confirmation that it was a “cool” site.
Unlike many political web sites – which are frequently revised or deactivated as soon as they have served their short-term purpose – the CVF’s voter guide will remain on the Internet as a permanent archive. The purpose is twofold. Voters will have lasting access to information about winning and losing candidates – an unprecedented accountability tool. And other jurisdictions will have a prototype as they start requiring candidates to file campaign finance information electronically. As the Point Survey Review stated, “This site is a great example of how the Internet can be used to educate voters . . . it can serve as a model for other election sites.”
BUILDING THE DATABASE
The campaign finance database was the most technologically advanced area of the voter guide. Because of San Francisco’s electronic filing ordinance, campaign finance data were available on the Internet within days – and sometimes hours – after records were filed with the Registrar of Voters. The database contains more than 30,000 records, including all campaign contributions and expenditures, as well as summary data from 31 municipal candidates, ballot measures and political committees. The information is organized into “flat files” containing summary data that users can scroll through, or users can fill out a query form to search through contributions and expenditures.
Especially valuable was a feature that enabled campaign expenditures to be searched by a number of fields, including expenditure codes. This makes it possible to find out not only how campaign money was spent, but who profited most in the campaign industry.
CREATING THE SITE
A coalition of public and private partners was assembled beginning in the spring of 1995. The CVF received financial support from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the Pew Center for Civic Journalism’s Citizen Election Project, the Joyce Foundation and the Columbia Foundation. A number of private entities provided expertise. SDR Technologies, which designed and maintains San Francisco’s electronic filing software, got involved. Netcom On-Line Communications Services and its public relations firm, Fleischman-Hillard, offered promotional support. Capitol Web Works, a Sacramento web design company, helped develop a user-friendly site with “buttons” on the guide’s home page for information on the mayor, sheriff, district attorney and the ballot measures, as well as for the finance database. Digital Equipment Co.’s server in Palo Alto, one of the hubs of the Internet, provided extraordinary computing power, allowing speedy processing of database queries.
PROMOTING THE SITE
Getting the word out was essential to the project’s success. Outreach went forward over the Internet, through the news media and directly to the public. The project director handled news releases, news conferences and follow-up with newspapers, and news shows on radio and television. Press releases were sent to the CVF’s media contact list and, through a news release service, to other outlets. On the Internet, links were sought to the voter guide from related web sites. At the grassroots level, an outreach office was set up at the San Francisco League of Women Voters’ offices. Fliers were available at all 26 branches of the city’s public libraries, as well as at coffee shops and Laundromats. Companies including Pacific Telesis, Bechtel and Pacific Gas & Electric sent postcards and e-mail messages to employees encouraging them to access the voter guide.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The CVF believes that the 23,000 file retrievals was a respectable number, but would certainly have been higher had the outreach started earlier. Public access to the Internet remains a significant obstacle. Moreover, as the news media have been reporting, users are finding the Internet frustratingly cumbersome to access and navigate. There is little doubt, however, that access to the Internet will continue to increase exponentially. The San Francisco Online Voter Guide will stand as a useful model for other communities to provide voters with critical information about candidates. Money has always been the mother’s milk of politics. In the years to come, the public may be able to find out who the money comes from and who it goes to well before the votes are cast.
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