Putting election reports online easy next step

  It looks like Yuma County residents won't have to wait to see if a new Arizona public information measure actually becomes law.

  Sue Stallworth of the Yuma County elections division told the Cronkite New Service that campaign finance reports will be available online here by June, jumping ahead of a proposal in the Legislature that would accomplish the same thing. She said county officials made the decision after becoming aware of the pending legislation.

  Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, introduced the legislation, SB 1024, to make information about campaign donations to candidates in Arizona more readily available. It requires cities and counties to post campaign finance reports online for all local candidates for election. Candidates are required to file the reports by state law.

  There are some loopholes in the plan, however. It exempts six counties with less than 100,000 population and cities with less than 2,500 residents. These exceptions are likely due to protests about the requirement from some counties and cities and perhaps concerns about the Web sophistication of some rural government entities.

  A bigger concern in our view is the exemption for reports involving less than $500 in contributions or expenditures. While that may seem like a small amount compared with statewide races or even some local races in larger cities, that amount still would be of interest to some people tracking local candidates. If the information is being collected anyway, why not make it available online?

  While some local officials have apparently complained about the cost of providing the information on local candidates - it is already provided online for statewide races by the Arizona Secretary of State's Office - we do not see that as a big hurdle.

  This was confirmed by Stallworth, who said the cost of creating the needed database would be negligible. It should also be relatively inexpensive to keep it up-to-date after its creation, essentially requiring only a few hours of time - certainly not a big cost compared with the potential public benefit.

  The campaign records have to be collected and maintained anyway, so adding an online component should be a relatively small step. For those counties and cities that lack the expertise, perhaps the secretary of state's office could be encouraged to help them.

  We particularly like Stallworth's attitude toward helping the public.

  "We think (providing the information online is) just another service to our customers," she told the Cronkite News Service, "to allow them access to that public information, free of charge, without having to come in and pay the copying costs."

  Wow, that's an approach we would like to see spread far and wide through government entities.