Update on the new "real time" disclosure of independent expenditures and electioneering communications.
We're still working on the full processes for creating data for all 24-hour and 48-hour filings for independent expenditures and electioneering communications, but while we continue to build the final process we wanted to start making data available as soon as possible.
We've posted a new file on the ftp server - ftp://ftp.fec.gov/FEC/ind_exp_2010.csv which contains all of the independent expenditure transactions from these 24/48-hour filings. We're planning to update this file a couple of times each business day, and early next week we'll add a similar file for electioneering communications.
Here's the file description;
can_id - ID number for the candidate referenced in the spending
cand_nam - name of the candidate (as it was provided in the report)
spe_id - ID number of the committee or group making the disbursement
spe_nam - name of the committee or group or person making the disbursement
ele_typ - election type - e.g. G=general, P=primary, S=special
can_off_sta - candidate state abbreviation
can_off_dis - candidate district
can_off - candidate office sought (H=House, S=Senate)
cand_pty_affiliation - candidate party
exp_amo - specific expenditure amount
exp_dat - expenditure date
agg_amo - aggregate from this spender in this race
sup_opp - S=support O=oppose the candidate
pur - purpose of the disbursement
pay - payee
(Update 9/13: - we've added two columns that may help in identifying duplicate transactions from amendments)
file_num - filing number (identifies the electronic filing within which the transaction was reported
amndt_ind - amendment indicator (N=new, A=amendment)
tran_id - transaction identifier (unique within the filing)
image_num - image number for the transaction (i.e. location where the entry can be viewed)
receipt_dt - receipt date for the submission
Sorry for the confusion. I know this isn't what we promised, but we thought it was more important to make the data available than to have all of the bells and whistles finished.
