Here’s how to track campaign cash in Alaska elections

Because of a federal court decision last year, the state’s failure to appeal that decision, and the Alaska Legislature’s failure to approve new legislation, nominees for the state legislature and governor of the state of Alaska can accept unlimited amounts of money from individual donors .

These donations can be unlimited, but each must be disclosed and released as public information. While donations to federal candidates — those running for the US House of Representatives and Senate — have limits, they are also public information. This also applies to donations to third-party groups such as unions or groups that support a specific election or industry.

Here’s what you need to know.

Why does it matter?

Campaign funding records — listings of who donated, how much a candidate raised, and how much a candidate spent — can show the strength or weakness of a political campaign, an indication of whether a candidate is winning or losing.

For example, when it comes to the US House, the candidate who raises the most money wins 90% of the time.

Tracking where donations are coming from can show whether a candidate’s support is coming from their own district or whether they are receiving large amounts of money from people who do not live in a specific location and cannot vote for that particular candidate.

Tracking who donates can reveal whether a particular company or industry believes a candidate is likely to support their interests. Looking at how much a person donates can show if a candidate is supported by only a few wealthy people or if their ads are being bought with many people’s small contributions.

when to look

The Alaska Public Offices Commission, a state agency, regulates state-level races and posts campaign financial reports on its website.

Anyone who intends to raise or spend at least $5,000 while running for state office must register with the commission by filing a letter of intent.

These letters are searchable and are sometimes filed a year or more before an election. They are useful in determining who is considering running for office, but are not a guarantee: until someone registers with the Alaska Division of Elections, they are not an official candidate.

When someone registers, they must disclose their campaign expenses and donations at various times: at the beginning of the calendar year, 30 days before the primary, 7 days before the primary, 30 days before the general election, and 7 days before the general election.

All donations within 7 days of an election receive special reports.

At any of these times it is good to look at the records as they contain the most current information available.

For this year’s November 8 general election, all candidates must report their fundraising on October 10 and November 1.

Even after the election, candidates can still accept donations to pay off outstanding debts or to save for the next election campaign. The deadline for this is December 23, and the final election report – including all data collected and issued – is due on February 15, 2023.

Federal candidates report their fundraising and spending to the Federal Electoral Commission, and they have a limit. Candidates can only accept $5,800 from an individual during an election cycle — $2,900 for the primary and $2,900 for the general.

Federal Candidates Report quarterly plus pre-election report and post-election report.

This year, a quarterly report is due on October 15 and the primary report on October 27. Post-election reports are due December 8 and January 31, 2023.

Because a special election was held for the US House of Representatives this year, candidates had to file a few additional reports, most recently on September 15.

The FEC website is fairly user-friendly, but APOC searches are more difficult.

How to find state candidate information

If you open the APOC website you will see a whole list of options. By clicking Campaign Disclosure Reports, you can search for specific candidates, specific donors, and even things candidates spent their money on.

Other links – such as for “Income” and “Expenses” – allow you to browse all donations, regardless of candidate, or all expenses, regardless of candidate.

All searches work roughly the same.

First select the year in which you want to search. If you use the default setting of every year, you may get results from previous elections that are no longer relevant.

Second, choose a date range and remember when candidates will submit their reports. You can leave this field blank, but you must review all reports submitted by a candidate for a full year.

If you’re just looking for the latest report, do yourself a favor and narrow it down. For example, if you’re looking around October 10th – because that’s when the next report is due – just look for reports submitted between September 10th and October 10th.

Next, use the drop-down menu labeled “any name” to select “candidate name.” This allows you to enter who you want to search for. Leaving it blank will display all reports submitted by each candidate for each office.

There’s another drop-down menu to the right of the candidate’s name that you can use to narrow your search by type of election—for example, if you want to search for city election records—but generally this isn’t necessary.

So read the files

As a test, I ran a search for all reports filed by independent gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker between July 15 and August 17. That range is wide enough to include every report filed for the August 16 primary. You can see the result below.

A copy of the report can be viewed by clicking the Submitted link to the right of each entry. For example, click on the seven-day report filed on August 10th.

Each candidate report is divided into approximately four parts. At the top is information that tells you who submitted the report, who the candidate is, what election they are for, and what information is included in the report.

Here, for example, under “Report Information” we can see that this includes everything from July 16 – when they submitted their 30-day report – to August 6.

The part after that, called “Financial Summary,” shows the financial health of the candidate’s campaign.

The first line, “Cash on hand at the beginning,” shows how much money the campaign had on July 16, the day this report begins. The second line, “Total reported income,” lists how much money the candidate received in donations from July 16 through August 6, the period we saw under “Reporting information.”

The next row, Spending, shows how much the candidate spent from July 16th to August 6th.

If you add the cash balance to the income and then subtract the expenses, you get the “closing cash balance”, ie how much money the campaign had on August 6th.

If the candidate has debts – things they bought but haven’t paid for yet – these will appear in the report and if you subtract them from the ‘close cash balance’ you will get ‘surplus/deficit’, how much money they have to pay available spend.

On the right are entries of how much money the candidate raised and spent on their entire campaign, not just the period covered in this report.

The next part of the report, “Income,” lists who donated to a campaign, where they live, and how much they donated. State law requires all of this information to be collected and released by the campaign. Again, this example only lists donations made between July 16 and August 6; other reports cover other periods.

The final part of the report, “Expenses,” lists all of the items that a candidate purchased with their donations during the period specified in the report.

If a listing under either “Income” or “Expenses” is blue instead of black, it indicates someone has donated an item to a candidate—usually airline miles or airline tickets, but silent auction items or campaign signs donated by a candidate to themselves (required if they are recycling items from a previous campaign) are shown in blue.

Other searches

To search for a specific donor, or to search for all donations made to a candidate, regardless of when they were made, go to the APOC website and click on Campaign Disclosure Reports – Search Income.

There’s a similar search by cost – only if you want to find out, for example, how many candidates Spent money to buy candy.

Candidates and individuals are not the only ones involved in elections. Supporting or opposing election action groups must follow similar reporting schedules and rules as candidates. Your submissions will appear under Campaign Disclosure Reports if you search for the group name. In some cases, the best way to learn this name is to look for the fine print at the end of a printed ad or listen for the quick spoken disclosure at the end of a TV or radio ad.

These groups are restricted by law, but there is another category of political groups worth learning about.

So-called “independent spending” groups are allowed to accept and spend unlimited amounts of money, so long as they don’t coordinate directly with a candidate or campaign.

Independent spending groups must submit reports within 10 days each time they raise or spend money.

To search these filings, click on Independent Issues at the top of the APOC website. If you only use a date range, everything that was submitted within a certain period of time will be displayed.

This story is part of a collaboration between Alaska Public Media, the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Beacon and KTOO. The idea for this came straight from voters like you. We work together to ensure our election coverage is voter-focused, voter-centric and meets as many of your needs as possible.

For more election coverage and voter resources, visit alaskapublic.org/elections.

Want to know the story behind the story? Subscribe to Washington Correspondent Liz Ruskin’s newsletter, Alaska At-Large.

Remember, you have until October 9th to register to vote or update your voter registration. Find out how here.