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New online campaign filing option delayed Saturday, Sep 16, 2006 By Betsy Turner Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - The introduction of a new system to file campaign finance reports online has been delayed until early next year, Secretary of State Charlie Daniels said Friday. Daniels said he hopes to have an online filing option for candidate and lobbyist financial disclosure forms available by the first of the year, which would allow all reports to be put directly into a computer network. The secretary of state's office had hoped to have the system online by the beginning of filing period in April but other projects took priority, Daniels said. His office has been heavily involved in working out problems with the installation of new electronic voting machines statewide that caused delays in vote tallying during the May party primaries. Candidates and lobbyists now must take the reports to Daniels' office at the state Capitol or mail them. With the current system, Daniels said financial reports are scanned and uploaded to the Internet He said he hopes the new option will be make it more clear for users looking at the reports. "When you go on to view those reports, it is difficult to read," Daniels said. Daniels said use of the online filing option will be voluntary, with manual filing still available. He said the system will also automatically add up expenditure and contribution line items and allow online viewers to search the financial disclosure report database in new ways, such as by donors. Daniels said the office is testing the equipment but did not want to make it available in the middle of the filing period. The system is being tested by the Information Network of Arkansas, according to Deputy Secretary of State Peggy Gram. Zac Wright, spokesman for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mike Beebe, said the new system would be a welcome change and joked it could save many trees by cutting down on the number of copies of the voluminous reports made. "This will be an innovation to streamline and make simple our political process," Wright said. |
