How To Look Up Your Candidate's Financial Reports

In this election season, we thought it would be helpful for people to know how to look up financial reports for their candidates. As a public service, we offer the following instructions for multi-county and Alachua County Candidates.

Campaign finance is something that is intended, by our government, to be an open process. The intention is that we should know who is contributing to our campaign and who our campaigns are spending their money with. It is in the spirit of public service that we offer the following guides.

For State or Multi-County Candidates, the following instructions apply:

1. The address is http://election.dos.state.fl.us/cand/index.asp.

2. Under the Status drop down menu, you can choose Qualified, All (except WIT/DNQ) or even candidates that did not qualify or have been defeated. For our example, we will choose a candidate that is "Withdrawn/Did Not Qualify".

3. Here, you can put your candidates last name in the "Candidate Last Name" field. For our example, lets use the one House or Senate Candidate in Alachua County that did not qualify. Put "Grapski" in the "Candidate Last Name" field and click the Submit Query button.

4. Click on the name "Grapski , Charlie (DEM)"

5. Click on the Campaign Finance Activity Button.

5. There you will see all of the reports filed by that candidate with the Division of Elections. The system is very accurate. If the report is not there, then it has not been filed. For this particular candidate, as of 08-02-06, you will see one report for the January 1st to March 31st, 2006 period.

If you have any questions about campaign financing or about any candidates in particular, including whether a candidate has filed, or not, the Department of State, Division of Elections can by reach at (850) 245-6200.


For County Candidates:

1. Go to http://www.voterfocus.com/ws/wscand/candidate_pr.php?c=alachua

2. From the drop down menu, you can choose the specific race. 2006 Gubernatorial will be many of the local races while 2006 Sheriff, Special be be for the Sheriff election.

3. Click on a particular candidate

4. Click on any particular report or a list of all contributions and expenditures.

The main page for the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections can be located at http://elections.alachua.fl.us/. For other questions, they can be reached by phone at 352-374-5252.