Sec. Brewer Announces New Campaign Finance Reporting System

Web-based System to Provide Public Better Information about Political Committees

PHOENIX -- Secretary of State Jan Brewer announced a brand new and revamped campaign finance filing system for candidates and political committees. This new web-based system will replace the antiquated software-based system and will help facilitate better compliance, ensure more open reporting, and make it more convenient for the general public. Starting this week, candidates and political committees are being contacted about conversion to the new system, which will become available online to the public starting January 2, 2008.

Secretary of State Brewer had promised a complete overhaul and renovation of the campaign system as part of the goals and objectives she set for her second term in office. Today’s announcement signifies the end of a year long effort to reach this accomplishment and specifically honor her commitment to improve this process for the benefit of the public and the political committees that seek to influence Arizona’s statewide and legislative elections. Since statehood, candidates and political committees have been required to report their contributions and expenditures.

Secretary Brewer said, “I made a pledge at the time I ran for reelection to replace our antiquated campaign filing system with a system that is web-based and state of the art. I am pleased to announce that this process is now complete and the public will soon reap the benefits by having more information available to them via the web.”

This new system will ease compliance with the campaign finance laws. As a web-based system it no longer requires software, it can run on any machine (including Apple), it provides committees the ability to have multiple users, and it will increase compliance by notifying committees of upcoming events and deadlines. In addition, the system will provide the public a more comprehensive overview of each committees’ financial position.

“Having a web-based campaign finance system will greatly simplify the manner in which political committees report their contributions and expenditures, and provide the public better and more comprehensive information,” stated Secretary of State Jan Brewer.

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