One of the top questions we receive from first-time users of our database is “Where do you get your data?”
The short answer is that we take it directly from reports provided by the regulatory body that governs campaign finance in each state. The logical followup question – which many ask – is, “So can’t I just get the data I need from there?”
And that short answer is, you can. It’s all public record. But, as with most things, it’s complicated. The state reports are often difficult to access, and even more trouble to sift through, see total contributions and expenditures, or conduct any kind of meaningful search through the data. Many times, the publicly available reports are just scans of long, handwritten forms.
Transparency USA wades through all that raw data so you don’t have to. We add it to our ever-growing database, allowing you to easily search the name of any candidate, PAC, or donor. You can quickly see a snapshot of their current financial position, along with individual transaction details and historic data.
Our “Where Did TUSA Get These Numbers?” series is for our detail-oriented users, who want to know exactly what we do to bring you the most accurate campaign finance information available for every state in our database. You’re our kind of people.
Florida is one of our most unique states, particularly when it comes to how our team gets access to campaign finance reports. It’s the only state in our growing database that physically mails us DVDs, which we think exemplifies how each state handles report data according to their own specifications. Here’s how we get the numbers you see on our Florida page.
Data Acquisition
The Florida Department of State provides access to campaign finance report data in two places:
- Web Interface Searches – The candidate and committee searches allow users to search for high-level reports. The four transaction searches allow transaction-level filtering. Users can search by several candidate (or committee) criteria (name, office, party) and contributor or payee criteria (name, address, amount, purpose, etc). This allows users to find specific transaction information but does not allow for easy browsing of the data.
- Candidates – Candidate campaign committees.
- Committees – Non-candidate committees.
- Contributions – Money coming into the campaign or committee.
- Expenditures – Money leaving the campaign or committee.
- Transfers – Transfers between committee accounts.
- Other Distributions – Extended details about certain expenditures.
- DVDs Sent By Mail
- A physical DVD containing all available data can be requested directly from the Florida Department of State. This process can sometimes take up to six weeks.
Florida’s web interfaces alone do not meet Transparency USA’s standards for accuracy because they are:
- Unreliable: Obtaining 100 percent data coverage through searching and scraping may be possible, but is a last resort since it is more prone to human error.
- Incomplete: Search results are missing several data points, such as the unique identifiers that Florida uses to track each committee.
As a result, Transparency USA has elected to request DVDs of the more complete records in lieu of using the web interface. Because Florida only provides those records on a physical DVD sent to our team by mail, there is sometimes a delay between reporting deadlines and the availability of the latest campaign finance numbers on Transparency USA. The improved quality of the data makes it worth any extra lead time.
Florida’s Quality of Data Disclaimer
Transparency USA has encountered issues with data entry quality in every state. This is not the fault of a single individual, department, or committee. Unintentional errors of this nature are inherent in any system involving a substantial amount of manual data entry.
The Florida Department of State provides this disclaimer about data quality on their site:
Some of the information in the campaign finance database was submitted in electronic form, and some of the information was key-entered from paper reports. Sometimes items which are not consistent with filing requirements, such as incorrect codes or incorrectly formatted or blank items, are present in the results of a query. They are incorrect in the database because they were incorrect on reports submitted to the division.
Reported Data
The Florida DVDs provide data in eight types of files: Candidates, Committees, Contributions, Expenditures, Distributions, Deletes, Summaries, and Updates.
Transparency USA uses data from five of these file types. Explanations are provided below.
Candidates and Committees
These two files contain records representing the candidates and PACs registered with the state.
Transparency USA imports these records as a framework to organize the remaining files.
Contributions
These reports include all contributions, including monetary donations, interest, loans received, and non-monetary in-kind contributions.
Records can be positive or negative. Negative records represent money that left the committee – such as donations that were refunded to the person making the donation, or loan repayments (where the original loan was a positive record).
Transparency USA imports all data from these files, maintaining their positive or negative values as reported. All contribution types, except loans, are included in total contribution numbers for Florida. Loans are categorized separately, to maintain consistency with how that data is displayed across other states in the TUSA database. Loan information can be found on the profile of any Florida candidate or PAC.
Expenditures
All money spent or donated by the campaign is reported in this file. Records can be positive or negative. Positive values indicate transactions such as operating expenses or donations made to other organizations. Negative values indicate refunded expenses.
Transparency USA imports all records from these files as expenditures, maintaining their positive or negative values as reported.
Distributions
Distributions are all linked to other expenditure records, and provide more information about the purpose or breakdown of those expenditures.
Transparency USA does not currently import these, since the money they represent is already included in the expenditures files.
Summaries
Summaries contain cover sheet information from each report filed by a PAC. Transparency USA uses these for deduplication efforts, import, and validation purposes, but does not display them on the site.
Updates and Deletes
These files are provided for contributions, expenditures, and distributions. They record modifications to the three main files over time.
Because we import the latest contribution, expenditure, and distribution files every time, Transparency USA does not need the change-history within these update and delete files.
Party Information
Transparency USA displays the current party affiliation for active candidates and officeholders. The party information displayed may not be accurate:
- For candidates who are not actively running for or serving in state-level office
- When accessing candidate or officeholder data from previous election cycles
Party affiliation for active candidates and officeholders is provided by Ballotpedia.
Want more from Florida? This data explanation is part of our Florida Political Profile, where you can explore more of the regulatory details governing money in the Sunshine State. Be sure to check back for updated information throughout the election cycle, or subscribe to get the latest updates delivered straight to your inbox.