$1.1 million went to Boise candidates during the election. Search all the donations here
Boise’s new mayor and elected council members took office on Jan. 7 following a long election season notable for its hotly contested races.
Starting in October, candidates filed campaign finance reports, letting the public know who was funding their campaign (and how much they were giving). Those forms can be hard to sift through, so Idaho Statesman has created a searchable database for the public to see who gave their financial support to which candidates and issues in the 2019 Boise election cycle.
This database is made up of filings from every Boise candidate from October 2019 to January 2020. That timeframe covers the Nov. 5 general election that saw Patrick Bageant, Jimmy Hallyburton and Elaine Clegg elected to the council. It also covers the mayoral runoff raise between then-Mayor David Bieter and now-Mayor Lauren McLean.
To see all donations, leave the search fields empty and just hit the “Search” button.
If you can’t see the database in your browser, click here to open it in a new window.
Campaign finance requirements in Boise
Candidates’ last deadline was Friday, Jan. 31. The reports already submitted include two from October (the Oct. 10 Pre-General and the 7-Day Pre-General), 48-hour notices of any contribution of $1,000 in the week leading up to both the November election and the runoff, and Post-General reports required in December. McLean, along with her runoff opponent, David Bieter, had to submit separate 30-day Post-Runoff reports.
Contributions from candidates must be reported. Individuals, corporations, political action committees or other entities can contribute up to $1,000 to a candidate or a committee organized on the candidate’s behalf per election. There are no limits on amounts that can be collected by candidates, political action committees, or committees formed to support or oppose ballot measures.
This database will be updated as candidates submit their filings listing financial donors, and it was last updated at 11:10 a.m. on Feb. 6. Wayne Richey, a mayoral candidate, submitted his finance reports but had no contributions, so he does not appear in the database.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy did we create this database?
In Boise, campaign finance reports are available on the city website, but they require clicking through each individual candidate. Those documents are also scanned PDF files, which means they’re unsearchable. We wanted to create a place someone could go not only to see all the cash donations made to candidates but also to search by candidate, by donor and by donation amount.
Read more by clicking the arrow in the upper right.
How did we create this database?
We pulled information from the city’s clearinghouse for all election data. All data included in this database is public and is available directly from the city. We opted not to include donors’ specific addresses but did include cities and states.
For candidates who filled out the standard contribution form, we brought the data in ourselves by hand. Some candidates uploaded there donation data in a different file, and we asked those candidates specifically for spreadsheets. Most gave them to us.
For candidates who did not give us access to their donor spreadsheets (which are already public information), we took what they gave to the city clerk and ran them through a program called that does something called “Optical Character Recognition.” That program effectively uses tools to read words from a scanned PDF and tries to convert them into a usable spreadsheet. It helps cut down the time significantly, but sometimes it can make errors we do not catch.
What if I see an error?
If there’s a mistake, we want to get it fixed. Reach out to Hayley Harding, who reports on the city of Boise for the Idaho Statesman, at hharding@idahostatesman.com.
This story was originally published October 10, 2019 at 10:42 AM with the headline "$1.1 million went to Boise candidates during the election. Search all the donations here."
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