Determining who’s footing the bill for political campaigns and, consequently, who our elected officials are really serving, has long been a challenge for voters in our system of legalized corruption. San Diego voters will soon be able to track and analyze the campaign contributions and independent expenditures of local political campaigns with an online dashboard created by a coalition of non-partisan political reform organizations.
While campaign finance information has always been available to the public, it is hard for the less than tech-savvy individual to make sense of the numerous spreadsheets and PDF files it is stored in, Amy Tobia, co-leader of Represent San Diego, a local branch of the national RepresentUs democracy reform movement, explained. This difficulty effectively prevents the public from accessing the available information. “Without transparency there can be no accountability, and distrust grows,” she added.