ELEC reports coming soon, but maybe you don’t need to care

Campaign finance reporters will be released by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission this morning, so read them cautiously.

The reports will include contributions and expenditures made between June 24 and October 6, nearly two weeks ago.  The deadline for reporting the numbers was October 10, and it took ELEC eight days to process them; some of that isn’t their fault; ELEC is still using technology that is decades old.

The reality is this: knowing the amount of raised and spent dollars as of October 6 is data twelve days later is of limited usefulness.  It doesn’t really offer an accurate picture of cash-on-hand since these numbers change at lightning speeds at this point in the election cycle.

On top of that, individual campaign accounts for legislative candidates in the most closely watched districts offer a limited view of what’s going on.  The big numbers – the ones that will move voters and determine the outcomes of elections – come from campaign leadership PACs, super PACs, party organizations, and independent expenditures.  Don’t double-count funds transferred from one account to another, like transfers from an individual Assembly campaign fund to a joint account.

Simply put, the 29-day pre-election report is merely a snapshot in time – and the data is old, if not in political terms, ancient.

The Federal Election Commission, which handles candidates for U.S. Senate, House and President, and for federal PACs, offers real-time information.  File at noon, see the report then.

The New Jersey Globe will report some of these numbers today, but take them with a grain of salt.  Knowing 12-day-old  numbers is of limited value and doesn’t paint a thorough picture.

Still, in some cases, the numbers will be helpful.  They can show whether some campaigns are serious at all.  You can rely more on local races in small towns that still offer old-fashioned ELEC reports.  And you’ll be able to watch burn rates, where campaigns overspend on overhead, or when safe seat legislative candidates spend so much on coffee and bagels for the office that they are left unable to send out voter communications that aid down-ballot candidates.   Coattails aren’t what they used to be because safe seaters don’t spend their money running campaigns and turning out voters; that’s a responsibility that falls on state lawmakers every four years.

There’s a good chance that the newly constituted ELEC board will address the timeliness of their reports in the future.