An effort to require Mississippi candidates to file their campaign finance reports online appears, once again, likely to fail in the state Legislature.
The House Elections Committee on Thursday voted to pause debate on SB 2589, with the option to resume debate in the future. But if the committee does not pass the bill by Tuesday, the legislation will die. Similar measures have died in the past.
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The bill would require county, municipal and state candidates to file their campaign finance reports online with the secretary of state’s office. This is an effort to provide the public with searchable, legible campaign finance data, as most states, including all those surrounding Mississippi have.
But some House members expressed concerns about requiring candidates, especially in rural areas, to file reports online.
“I’m not trying to make an 80-something-year-old try to figure out how to file something online,” House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford said.
But Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson, said candidates need to learn how to use the internet because it’s “not going away” and technology is an integral part of modern life.
“If you’re going to run for office and say that you are capable of running any level of government, you need to know how to use the damn internet,” Yates said.
Sanford, a Republican from Collins, proposed a compromise that would require candidates for a state office to file online reports, but exempt local candidates from filing an online report with the secretary of state if they receive less than $2,000 in campaign donations in a year.
But Yates and Rep. Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, disagreed with that proposal because they believe every candidate in Mississippi, local and state level, should be held to the same standard.
“If we’re not making everyone do it, I’m going to vote no,” Currie said.
Current state law requires candidates for state office to file reports with the secretary of state’s office, county candidates with local circuit clerks and municipal candidates with local municipal clerks.
But the law gives candidates wide latitude in how they can submit the report.
Candidates can handwrite reports, submit pictures of them, or submit them in spreadsheet format. Lax requirements allow some handwritten reports to be illegible, or the print on the report too small for a person to read.
To solve this issue, Secretary of State Michael Watson plans on rolling out a new searchable, user-friendly campaign finance website similar to the one operated by the Federal Election Commission for federal candidates.
During the debate, Yates pointed out that every candidate is already required to file a statement of economic interest online, which is a report filed with the Mississippi Ethics Commission to disclose sources of income.
Tom Hood, the director of the Ethics Commission, told Mississippi Today that the commission first required candidates and public officials to file the forms online in 2010, and there has been positive feedback
For people who have trouble with technology, Hood said the commission allows them to send their form in through the postal service or by alternative means. But “only a handful” of people choose other options, the director said.
“People should not be afraid of online filing,” Hood said.
If passed, the bill would not mandate online filing until 2028, one year after statewide elections in 2027, to give candidates time to acclimate to the new requirements.
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