A BILL to amend and reenact § 24.2-946.1 of the Code of Virginia, relating to elections; campaign finance disclosure reports; searchable electronic database.
HB44 amends Virginia’s campaign finance disclosure law to expand and modernize the State Board of Elections’ electronic reporting and public database requirements. The bill keeps the existing framework for electronic filing of campaign finance reports, but adds more explicit direction that the public database must be searchable and sortable by candidate, office, election type, committee, spender, contributor, and categories such as contributions, expenditures, loans, late filings, incomplete filings, and other violations. It also requires tools for manipulating and exporting data, making campaign finance information easier for the public to use.
The bill also reinforces the State Board’s role in accepting electronic reports from candidates for the General Assembly, statewide office, local office, and constitutional office, and in notifying local registrars when reports are filed. It allows other campaign finance reports to be filed electronically by agreement with the Board. The effective date is July 1, 2027, giving the State Board time to develop or update the centralized system and database before the new requirements take effect.
HB44 would amend § 24.2-946.1 of the Code of Virginia, changing the state’s election administration rules for campaign finance reporting and public disclosure. Its main legal effect is to require a more robust, searchable, and user-friendly online campaign finance database for reports filed by candidates and committees, while preserving the State Board of Elections’ authority to set standards for electronic filing and to manage report transmission and public access. The bill would affect candidates for General Assembly, statewide, local, and constitutional offices, as well as committees and other filers covered by Virginia’s campaign finance laws.
The available record shows no committee transcript or recorded vote, so there is no direct evidence of debate or partisan division in the materials provided. Based on the bill text, the measure appears to be a transparency and administrative modernization proposal, which is typically framed positively as improving public access to election finance data. Its referral and later status of being left in the House Appropriations Committee suggest it did not advance, but the provided materials do not show opposition arguments or formal support statements.
No specific points of contention are documented in the supplied transcripts or votes. Potential areas of concern, based on the bill’s substance, could include the administrative and technical burden on the State Board of Elections, implementation costs for building or upgrading the searchable database, and compliance issues for filers adapting to new reporting tools. However, the record provided does not identify any member, committee, or stakeholder explicitly raising those objections.