What U.S. experts, state officials say



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Here's what other state officials and national experts say about Arkansas' hard-to-access campaign contribution and spending reports:

"Most people involved in politics, either covering it as a journalist or working on campaigns, know that to get any information about a candidate's finance reports, you have to look at the report as it's been scanned in from the printed version. It's not searchable. It doesn't take advantage of the technology that's available."

State Rep. Warwick Sabin, D-Little Rock

. . .

"I suppose there are people who are running for office who don't have the skills to file [campaign-finance reports] by computer. ... But this is 2014."

Former Arkansas Secretary of State Sharon Priest, executive director, Downtown Little Rock Partnership

. . .

"I can't say that I personally hear a lot of people complain. It's usually media. I don't hear it often. The majority of times I hear grumblings about the records, it's from somebody spending a lot of time looking at them."

Graham Sloan, director, Arkansas Ethics Commission

. . .

"Our office developed the online filing capability. ... The biggest problem a user would have is the fact that electronic filing of campaign reports is not required by statute. So you have any number of candidates who don't use it."

Janet Harris, deputy for elections for former Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, who served from 2003-11

. . .

"Access to online campaign contribution reports that can be searched and sorted "certainly improves democracy because it makes the financing of candidates more transparent. ... However, some believe that increasing disclosure hampers democracy because it prevents someone from spending their dollars to support political causes or candidates that might be controversial, for fear of backlash."

Karen Sebold, assistant professor, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville political science department

. . .

"I didn't think it was difficult at all [to file campaign contributions by computer in Arkansas]. You have to start typing in the person's name. If they've contributed to another campaign, their name pops up, address and all. All you have to do is verify it."

Charlotte Razer, a Blytheville certified public accountant who has filed Arkansas' campaign contribution reports via computer for several candidates

SundayMonday on 08/17/2014

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