The State Board of Elections on Wednesday formally approved the change of the filing deadline for periodic campaign finance reports from 5 p.m. the day they are due to 11:59 p.m.
The change was made under protest from the Virginia Press Association, the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association and the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics.
“While the change makes it easier for those who file, it makes it more difficult for reporters who cover campaigns in a timely way,” VCCA President Craig Carper told the board.
“The current 5 p.m. deadline allows print reporters to publish data in the next morning’s paper. The proposed change would effectively mean a 24-hour delay in distributing this information to the public,” said Carper, state Capitol reporter for WCVE Public Radio.
People are also reading…
In a meeting Jan. 8, the first day of the General Assembly session, Chairman Charles E. Judd first suggested that the deadline be changed after the re-election campaign for Del. Daun Sessoms Hester, D-Norfolk, had missed a June filing deadline by 14 minutes because of turnover in the campaign’s staff and had been fined.
Candidates often wait until the last minute to file campaign finance reports, partly to keep opponents guessing.
Election officials made the change without public notice, prompting Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration to require the board to open up an after-the-fact comment period so members of the public could express their views through an online survey.
Chris Piper, the board’s elections services manager, said Wednesday that the survey found 45 comments in favor of the proposed filing deadline with 15 opposed.
“The change is overwhelmingly supported by the community,” Piper said.
But Ginger Stanley, executive director of the Virginia Press Association, urged board members to reconsider the change because it would “hamper the public’s right to know” about the latest campaign finance reports in a timely fashion.
“While we can report the numbers on our website, delaying the release seven hours means we’ll be publishing the figures in the newspapers actually 30 hours after their release, and the loss of the time will no doubt have a negative impact on how newspapers across the state will present the information. Basically, it will not get the same play that it would have if it had been released at 5 p.m.,” Stanley said.
“The change would benefit politicians, but we think that this is to the detriment of the public,” she said.
The board did not respond to concerns expressed by media organizations.
“We’ve done this properly, it’s been up for public comment (and) we’ve had a good, lengthy discussion about it,” Judd said.
(804) 649-6537
Twitter: @MSchmidtRTD
