Common Cause/Vermont has begun compiling a fully searchable database of the 2012 campaign contributions to all candidates for state office and will post updated versions of the database weekly.
The first version of the database, ‘Vermont Master Contributions Database 071612,’will include all contributions from November, 2011 through July 15, 2012, will be posted by 5 pm Tuesday, July 17. An updated version will be posted on Friday, July 20, and on each subsequent Friday through Election Day. The database will be posted on the ‘Money in Politics’page of its website www.commoncause.org/vt.
The information in the comes fromthe campaign finance disclosure reports the candidates filed with the Secretary of State. In some cases, the candidates sent us the same spreadsheet files they used to fill out the state disclosure reports.
Because most candidates do not use spreadsheets to track their contributions, CC has to manually enter the information for each contribution by copying it from the scanned copies posted on the Secretary of State’s web site, a time-consuming process. Therefore, the information contained in ‘Vermont Master Contributions Database 071712’is incomplete, but it does include the contributions for the two gubernatorial candidates, some other statewide candidates, and a few Senate and House candidates. Friday’s version will have the contributions of additional candidates.
Each weekly update of the database is cumulative, that is, it lists all contributions for this election cycle, not just the new contributions entered since the previous version.
Finally, CC has finished tabulating and posting the rest of the contributions to the winning candidates to the House of Representatives for the 2010 election. Those results are included in the updated version of the master database for that year and in two files ‘House Acinapura - Higley’and ‘House Hooper-Wizowaty.’
Common Cause/Vermont7.16.2012
Common Cause/VT to post 2012 election database online
Submitted by tim
on