In the fall of 1998, the California Voter Foundation (CVF) produced the state’s first online database of campaign contributions received by candidates for state office and by ballot measure campaigns. CVF also produced its first annual Online Voter Guide, which received 50,000 visits and 450,000 page views over a six-week period around the Nov. 3, 1998 election.
The first step was to publicize the state’s and the Federal Election Commission’s voluntary electronic filing programs, which allowed candidates to report contributions and expenditures digitally so that interested citizens could view the information through the Internet rather than having to make a trip to the elections office to get a paper copy. Participating news organizations asked every candidate for state office, Congress and U.S. Senate if they would participate in the program. Those who filed voluntarily received a pat on the back in the Online Voters Guide. For those who did not, CVF obtained the paper filings and had student volunteers enter the information into an electronic, searchable database (developed by Compaq labs). Eight of the 16 major-party statewide candidates agreed to file electronically.
The information was incorporated into the popular Online Voters Guide with the debut of a feature called “Follow the Money.” Voters and journalists could view all the contributions to a candidate almost immediately after they were disclosed and CVF published and maintained up-to-date lists of the top 10 contributors to every statewide candidate and ballot measure, providing voters with a quick, easy-to-digest overview of the biggest funders behind each campaign. In all, the site logged 100,000 visits in 1998 and over one million page views. Users wrote thank you notes such as this one: “It is each of our responsibility to be informed voters. Your site is helping ensure that I am in that category.”
Contact:
Kim Alexander
President & Founder
California Voter Foundation
222D Street, Suite 6B
Davis, CA 95616
Phone: (530) 750-7650
Email: kimalex@calvoter.org