Campaign Finance is a recent and developing topic and has attracted growing attention from regulators and electoral contestants in the last few years. As such, some aspects of campaign finance regulation discussed in this Focus On might have to be adjusted in order to take into account new developments, while new areas of concern/ new components of campaign finance regulation should be addressed. The following questions aim at considering avenues of reflection in order to broaden the scope of this Focus On. 

Alternative models of campaign finance enforcing bodies

This Focus On is limited to countries in which the electoral management body (EMB) is responsible for campaign finance regulation. However, monitoring campaign finance can be undertaken by a variety of different bodies, including a competent supervisory body, a Court or a state financial body. Taking the EMBs solely into consideration gives only a partial overview of the supervision mechanisms since, according to the IDEA political finance database, only 47 % of the countries targeted by the database have an EMB as the campaign finance oversight body.[1] Taking into account examples from countries in which the supervision of campaign finance is taken on by a specialized body (such as in France or Lebanon) could help include the topic of political party financing since those institutions are generally tasked with the monitoring of political finance as a whole. This would help bring specialized expertise and auditing skills. On the other hand, including instances of campaign finance oversight carried out by Courts (such as Tunisia or Guinea) would help demonstrate further the sanctioning process since those judicial institutions are endowed with power to investigate potential violations of campaign finance regulations and to impose sanctions. 

Role of Civil Society Organizations in monitoring campaign finance

Civil society organizations (CSOs) can often play a major role in investigating facts, exposing wrongdoing, advocating for change, highlighting flaws in the regulatory process, identifying gaps in implementation, and proposing workable remedies and solutions. Moreover, CSOs are sometimes in a position to monitor campaign finance for a longer period and at a deeper level than is normally possible for the oversight body.

Campaign finance monitoring carried out by CSOs is a fundamental technique to achieve governmental transparency and accountability. Is it possible to combine/ link institutional campaign finance supervision and domestic campaign finance monitoring carried out by CSOs?  If so, how this Focus On could address this relationship?

There is also a growing number of campaign finance observation/ monitoring handbooks and reference materials (such as codes of good conduct or methodology manuals) published by international organizations or CSOs, including notably:

§  BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections);

§  The Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Political Finance Database;

§  The Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Handbook on Political Finance;

§  The International  Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) Political Finance Oversight Handbook, Training in Detection and Enforcement (TIDE)

§  The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions (OSCE/ODIHR) Handbook for the Observation of Campaign Finance;

§  The reports of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) including assessments on political party and campaign finance systems in the 49 GRECO members;

§  Monitoring Election Campaign Finance A Handbook for NGOs, Open Society Justice Initiative (2005) - see at: http://www.soros.org/sites/default/files/Handbook_in_full.pdf;

§  CRINIS,  joint project from Transparency International and the Carter Center, http://archive.transparency.org/regional_pages/americas/crinis

§  Regional Transparency International Initiatives, available at: http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/elections_and_anti_corruption_in_europe.

Social media and the internet

Social media have been extensively used by both the institutional actors (through the publication of electronic financial report templates and the disclosure of financial reports on internet) and the electoral contestants (through the setting up of Facebook and Twitter accounts and the submission and the publication of their financial reports).

→ The website of the oversight body could be used to disseminate information on campaign finance regulation. Indeed, all materials aimed towards candidates and political parties (handbooks, campaign account template, FAQs, etc) should be published on the oversight body’s website, be readily accessible in user-friendly reports, and be available sufficiently in advance of the electoral period.

The oversight body could develop a single web-based portal/platform which will allow political parties and candidates to file their campaign finance accounts directly and electronically, if the legal framework foresees electronic submission of financial reports. This would allow for a timely and up-to-date publication of all relevant information related to the financing of the campaigns. Decisions issued by the oversight body along with financial reports lodged by electoral constants should be made public in a timely manner to make this information easier to interpret and to reorganize for research purposes.

→ From the perspective of electoral contestants, the use of social media and the internet represent an innovative way of campaigning, allowing them to reach out to a greater number of voters more easily and at a lower cost. Most of countries do not have specific rules governing the extensive use of social media and the internet. This area will have to be further looked into and be dealt with in connection with the broader issue of New Voting Technologies.