GAO Report Released on Public Financing of Elections

Posted by on June 20, 2003

[posted from Demos: Democracy Dispatch]

The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently released a report on public financing of candidates in Maine and Arizona in the last two elections.
The study identified five measures for evaluating the merits of clean elections programs, including greater voter choice, increase in electoral competition, influence of special interest, the cost of campaigns and the increase of voter participation. Maine and Arizona scored well in all five areas. Of particular note was a slight increase in the number of candidates in both elections as compared to elections without public financing.

The results further revealed increased voter confidence in government and voter participation. Both the GAO and Public Campaign(http://www.publicampaign.org/), commenting on the report, concluded that more time was needed to fully access the impact of public financing of elections in those two states.

The GAO study was restricted to two election cycles. Public Campaign did report a 12% increase in female candidates in Maine, a 10% in Arizona, and a rise of candidates of color – mainly Latino and Native Americans. For the full GAO report, click here:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03453.pdf
Public Campaign’s analysis:
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