Disclosure requirements often come in the wake of regulations setting limits on campaign spending or contribution levels. Where disclosure is required for its own sake, and not in order to permit the policing of legal limits, then the rules are likely to be more lax and arbitrary. An example is the rules governing disclosures of campaign expenditures by national party organizations in Australia. The definitions of what constitutes campaign expenditure are over-simplified because they do not need to be exact. See also Regulation/Oversight of Campaign Finance.
However, where candidates must keep their expenses within limits, with severe penalties for failure to do so, separating campaign and non-campaign items will be taken very seriously. It will be subject to detailed rule-making, either through legal decisions (as in Britain), or through advisory opinions of regulatory agencies in those countries where such agencies are strong and active.
The most common form of campaign disclosure concerns election expenditures rather than income, since it is the level of spending that is normally subject to restriction.
The Australian Example
This is an illustration of a loose disclosure system operating without a campaign spending limit.
The electoral return that each party's appointed agent must complete after a House of Representatives or Senate election needs only disclose expenditures in six categories:
- broadcasting advertisements (including production costs)
- publishing advertisements (including production costs)
- display advertisements at a place of entertainment (including production costs)
- costs of campaign material where the name and address of the author is required (e.g. how-to-vote cards, pamphlets, posters)
- direct mailing, and
- opinion polling or other research related to the election.80
The return covers campaign expenses involving goods and services provided from the issue of the election writ until the close of polling. It need not include items of campaign spending apart from those listed. For example, travel and postage costs are not included.
Draft Only
