FEC Enhances Web Page to Highlight Last-Minute Money

For Immediate Release:                                                                                         Contact:     Sharon Snyder  October 19, 1998                                                                                                                          Ron Harris                                                                                                                                                         Ian Stirton                                                                                                                                                         Kelly Huff

FEC ENHANCES WEB PAGE TO HIGHLIGHT LAST-MINUTE MONEY

WASHINGTON – The Federal Election Commission today announced several additions to its Web site which will enable reporters and researchers to more easily find last-minute contributions to federal candidates and independent expenditures made on their behalf and/or against them.

Contributions of $1,000 or more, which are received between October 15 - November 1, must be reported by campaigns within 48 hours of receipt. Independent expenditures aggregating $1,000 or more made between October 15 - November 2 must be reported within 24 hours. In previous elections, the flood of such reports has discouraged many from trying to keep up with the last minute money flow. This new system will help users to track reports as they are filed.

The information will be updated daily as reports are processed.

The FEC’s Web site is located at http://www.fec.gov and contains information on campaign finance as well as copies of reports filed by PACs, political party committees, and House and Presidential campaigns. The search process being added today contains information which already exists on the FEC’s Web site, but is accessible only through each individual candidate or committee. The importance of the new access is that it will consolidate all last-minute contributions and allow users to see which candidates filed reports on a given day, or to view the reports filed on a given day by all candidates from a particular state. This will save time and allow users to view all or some activity, as they wish.

To access the new information, click on "View Contributions and Financial Reports…", then choose ‘Last-minute Contributions’ or ‘Independent Expenditures.’ For contributions, you can either choose all candidates within a state by clicking on the word ‘state’ and then clicking on that particular state within a map of the United States, (the abbreviation for that state will appear at the bottom of your screen), or ‘candidate’, which will give you an alphabetical listing of each candidate who has filed reports that day.

Independent expenditures, which are reported by various committees, groups, and individuals, will also be available by date. The user will be able to see the amounts spent for and/or against a candidate in one of three ways: alphabetically by the last name of the candidate, alphabetically by state and district, or alphabetically by the name of the committee, group or person making the expenditure.

The reports will be grouped by date, beginning with October 18.

Finally, the file containing summary financial information for candidates (WEBL) will be updated each day from October 19 through November 2. This file, normally updated on a monthly basis, contains overall receipts, totals for different sources of receipts, overall disbursements, cash-on-hand and debts. Select ‘Financial Information About Candidates, Parties and PACs’, then select downloadable databases, then select financial summary files.

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