Let The Sun Shine In

San Diego — After more than a year of preparation, the City of San Diego is about to introduce electronic filing, which will allow the citizenry to look up and sort through the campaign finance disclosure records of candidates for mayor, city council, and city attorney, as well as ballot measures. A spokeswoman says that the goal is to begin e-filing by July 31, which is the deadline for financial disclosures covering the first six months of this year. Campaigns that have raised $10,000 or more will have to file electronically; those under that cutoff still have the option of submitting paper forms, which will be scanned into the system and be available as PDF files. The spokeswoman says that the City will conduct tutorials during July to acquaint campaign treasurers with the new rules. In addition to saving researchers a trip to city hall, the system will allow them to analyze contributors by amount, employer, employment type, date, and location.