{"id":392602,"date":"2019-08-19T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T19:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=392602"},"modified":"2020-07-02T18:20:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T22:20:40","slug":"can-campaign-finance-disclosure-go-too-far-the-case-of-small-donors-392602","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/can-campaign-finance-disclosure-go-too-far-the-case-of-small-donors-392602\/","title":{"rendered":"Can campaign finance disclosure go too far? The case of small donors"},"content":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s possible that if you\u2019ve donated even as little as a dollar to a political candidate, it\u2019s information easily obtained on the internet.<\/p>\n
Federal law requires campaigns to disclose contributions of greater than $200. But online campaign fundraising conduits, such as ActBlue, are required to disclose the names and addresses of all<\/em> donors.<\/p>\n That concerns David Primo<\/a>, the Ani and Mark Gabrellian Professor and an associate professor of political science and business administration at the URochester.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cCampaign finance disclosure regulations are typically justified on the grounds that they prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption,\u201d Primo writes in a New York Times<\/em> op-ed<\/a> published recently online and in print. \u201cNo reasonable person, though, can argue that ActBlue\u2019s disclosures accomplish any of those goals.\u201d The op-ed is part of the newspaper\u2019s larger Privacy Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n An expert on campaign finance, Primo is working on a book, Campaign Finance and American Democracy: What the Public Really Thinks and Why It Matters<\/em> (forthcoming, University of Chicago Press).<\/p>\n