For at least a decade, national studies have awarded Arkansas low marks for its campaign-finance reporting practices.
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In a 2012 State Integrity Investigation, a group of national nonprofits gave Arkansas a D grade in the category of political financing laws and practices.
One issue concerned whether "publicly available records of political candidates' finances are accessible ... online" in a "meaningful" manner. Arkansas received an F -- 50 percent -- on that issue.
The report was a collaborative effort by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity nonprofits in Washington, D.C., and Public Radio International of Minneapolis.
Another study, "Grading State Disclosure," looked at states' campaign-finance disclosure laws and practices. Arkansas received an F every year that those ratings were released, from 2003-07.
The last year the study was carried out, 2008, Arkansas improved to a D-plus, in part because the secretary of state's office had introduced its optional computerized campaign-finance reporting system.
A trio of California entities produced the state disclosure series: the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, the Center for Government Studies in Los Angeles and the California Voter Foundation.
"I've seen some of those national ratings and Arkansas usually ranks pretty low," Arkansas Ethics Commission director Graham Sloan wrote in an email. "The concern used to be that the information wasn't available online. Now that it's online, the concern has shifted to the format of the information.
"Criticism can provide an effective catalyst for change."
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