Senate Disclosure Process
BaltimoreSun – There’s simply no excuse for this bizarre “business” process-
Senators, good politicians that they are, use computers to track their campaign contributors and maintain campaign records. But rather than transmit this information electronically to comply with the disclosure laws, senators print the documents, which can run thousands of pages, and deliver them to the Senate’s public disclosure unit two blocks away.
Many senators drop them in the mail. As long as they are postmarked by the filing date, they are in compliance with the law.
There, Senate staffers scan the reports, page by page, transforming them back to digital images. That can take two days.
Then they send the reconstituted computer files by e-mail to the FEC. There, the HP-8100 goes to work, printing and collating the material and preparing it for key-punchers.
Once that’s done, the data are transmitted electronically back to the FEC – which then posts them online. The process can take months.
-Shlok
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