09/19/13: Candidates who sit out ‘transparency day’

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

IF YOU ARE on email lists for candidates, you are always aware of when a financial reporting deadline is near. The emails become almost desperate, as candidates seek to look as good as possible when the reports come out.

The last deadline was Aug. 31, and reports reflecting activity for July 1 to Aug. 31 for all candidates who are on the ballot in November were due at 5 p.m. Monday.

You’ve no doubt already heard about the millions raised — and spent — in the statewide contests, particularly the gubernatorial race.

There will be, of course, other contests on the ballot, most notably those for the House of Delegates, and, in Hampton Roads, four of the five constitutional offices.

Political junkies, including me, are quick to log on to the websites of the State Board of Elections and the Virginia Public Access Project as soon as the filing deadline has passed. VPAP calls these filing days “Transparency Day,” with good reason.

The ability to review the financial reports gives us more than just the horserace numbers of who raised how much.

From the data, we can see who the donors are, how many of them there are, and how much the candidates are spending on what items. Combined with other, nonfinancial information, we get a better sense of the competitiveness of the contests.

The availability of the financial data is, as I’ve written before, predicated upon the candidates filing their reports electronically, using the free software provided by the SBE. But such filing is not mandatory.

Every candidate for the House of Delegates in our region has filed electronically. The same cannot be said for every candidate for the constitutional offices on our ballots.

In the two months since the last filing deadline, only one additional local candidate demonstrated a commitment to transparency by filing electronically.

Voters in Chesapeake can now easily compare the financial-related data for the candidates for commonwealth’s attorney, as incumbent Nancy Parr has joined the group. Unfortunately, that is not the case for the sheriff’s contest, as incumbent James O’Sullivan continues to file on paper.

Suffolk has just one contested local race. The two challengers are filing electronically, but incumbent Sheriff Raleigh Issacs continues to file on paper.

Portsmouth, too, has but one contest. None of the four candidates for sheriff, including incumbent Bill Watson, are filing electronically.

Kudos to both candidates in Virginia Beach’s sole local race, the hotly contested campaign for commonwealth’s attorney, as they are filing electronically.

With three contested races on the ballot — commissioner of the revenue, sheriff and treasurer — Norfolk candidates are almost perfect in their commitment to transparency. Just one of the seven, perennial candidate Sherry D. Battle-Edmonds, is not.

It is really difficult to encourage voters to be engaged in our political process if the engine of that process — money — is not readily available for inspection. Asking us to make the trip to our local election office and pay for copies of the financial reports is asking too much.

Paper filing of financial reports makes me wonder what the candidate is hiding. As the Dalai Lama said, “A lack of transparency results in distrust.” Those who do not embrace transparency don’t deserve our trust.

Nor do they deserve our vote.