Tuesday 28 October 2008

US political donation transparency literally streets ahead of Australian system

In Australia not only do we cast our ballots at federal, state and local government elections without knowing how big each candidate's campaign fund was or from whom they received donations; we often have no chance of finding out until long after election day has past.

In America it is a somewhat different story as many government web sites and blogs demonstrate (although the level of transparency appears to be a might uncomfortable in its comprehensive disclosure of personal details relating to individual donors).

The Huffington Post has turned reporting on campaign donations into an art form in 2008 with a search facility which allows anyone to type in a name and address and come up with an answer or a search can simply be conducted on a town, city or occupation.

Welcome to FundRace 2008.

Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you're seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one?

FundRace makes it easy to search by name or address to see which presidential candidates your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are contributing to. Or you can se if your favorite celebrity is putting money where their mouth is.



When you click on locations such as Salt Lake City a side box shows the names, addresses, occupations and amounts donated by everyone who identified themselves as living in that city.

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