[EL] Check out Study shows who breaks campaign laws - ThePuebloChieftai...

[Volokh, Eugene]

	A naïve question:  Could some of these problems -- at least to filing -- be relieved with automation (and might they already be so relieved), especially with automation that the jurisdiction is willing to certify as sufficient?  For instance, I certainly sympathize with concerns about the burden of reporting contributions and expenditures, but what if State X, when it enacts some such disclosure restrictions, provides that the obligation is discharged if a campaign worker goes to a particular Web site and accurately enters all the data he's asked to enter?  Likewise, I take it that whatever software is used to gather credit card donations via the Web presumably already creates a data file that can just be sent to the election authorities to discharge the disclosure obligations.  Or am I missing something big here?

	Eugene

> On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > You've touched a nerve. We have "reformed" our way into a time when one
> > cannot run an election campaign of any size, or a PAC, or conduct activities
> > of a state or local political party or club without the cost of a
> > professional treasurer and an attorney on retainer. At the same time we are
> > placing limits on the amounts of contributions and the permissible
> > expenditures in campaign without allowing for these "overhead" items to come
> > from a separate account. Gone is the day when a volunteer can be the
> > treasurer of a campaign for a friend if the campaign is of any consequential
> > size. On top of that, we have created a thicket of regulations and
> > requirements that differ from state to state and from jurisdiction to
> > jurisdiction within a state, thus making it virtually impossible for a
> > campaign and/or a candidate to avoid violations without the services of an
> > elections attorney who is watching over every facet of the campaign. And all
> > in aide of stamping out the perception of corruption. Tell me, is the
> > perception any less now than when we started the "reforms" some 40 years
> > ago?
> >
> > Larry