Data Acquisition
The Washington Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) provides access to campaign finance reports in two ways:
- PDC Website – The Washington PDC website provides several interfaces for browsing campaign finance information, including committee searches for viewing complete, filed reports and transaction searches for finding individual contributions and expenditures.
- Bulk CSV Downloads – Contributions, expenditures, loans, registered committees, and reports can be downloaded in comma-separated-value (CSV) files. Additionally, they offer Debts, Independent Expenditures, and Pledges.
Transparency USA downloads and imports the bulk CSV files.
Reported Data
Transparency USA processes five CSV file types – contributions, expenditures, loans, registered committees, and reports.
Candidates/Committees
This dataset is an index of all PDC Candidate and Committee Registrations.
In Washington, it is a requirement for candidates to register per election cycle, and some committees have to register annually. We have compiled a distinct list of candidates and committees to ensure accuracy by extracting the most recent information filed for each unique committee identifier from the annual filings.
Transparency USA imports all these records because they are the basis for transactional filing.
Contributions
This dataset contains cash and in-kind contributions, (including unpaid loans) made to Washington state Candidates and Political Committees as reported to the PDC on forms C3, C4, Schedule C and their electronic filing equivalents. It does not include loans which have been paid or forgiven, pledges, or any expenditures.
We have standardized a few contributor types that are unitemized rollups on the report summary by removing address information. This was done to ensure consistency across the entire dataset. The modified types are as follows:
- Small Contributions
- Miscellaneous Receipts
- Proceeds From Low Cost Fundraiser
- Anonymous Contributions
Additionally, we noticed that names were presented in different formats, which could pose a challenge for users trying to navigate through the data. We’ve taken the initiative to analyze the patterns and implement improvements across the entire data set. Here are a few examples of names and their corresponding fixes:
- Public John => John Public
- Public John Jr => John Public Jr
- Public John Mr => John Public
- Public J. Quisquam => J Quisquam Public
- Public John Q => John Q Public
- Public John Q III => John Q Public III
- Public John Q Mr => John Q Public
Fortunately, we encountered a minor issue with less than 0.15% of the records. These records contained multiple names, prefixes, or professional titles that couldn’t be automatically fixed. As a result, we decided to keep them in their original state as provided by the state.
Transparency USA imports all data from these files.
Expenditures
This dataset contains expenditures made by Washington state Candidates and Political Committees as reported to the PDC on forms C3, C4, Schedule C, and their electronic filing equivalents.
Unfortunately, the downloaded data does not indicate whether a transaction is monetary or in-kind.
We have standardized a few recipient types that are unitemized rollups on the report summary by removing address information. This was done to ensure consistency across the entire dataset. The modified types are as follows:
- Expenses of $50 or Less
- Expenses of $200 or Less
Transparency USA imports all data from these files.
Loans
This dataset contains candidate and political committee loan information. Data includes loans received, loan repayments, interest payments, and loans forgiven.
On the state website, we noticed that loans are categorized as monetary contributions. At Transparency USA, we have a separate loans tab and do not display them as contributions.
Furthermore, we do not monitor the status of a loan being repaid or forgiven. Consequently, Transparency USA does not import any “Forgiven” and “Payment” transactions in the data.
Reports
This dataset contains a list of all campaign finance reports (C3 and C4). It includes reports that have been superseded by an amendment.
Transparency USA uses an amended flag to exclude duplicate transactions.
Additional Information
On the Washington website, the reported PDFs display more information than they make available in the downloaded CSVs, specifically:
- Contributions – itemized “Miscellaneous Receipts”
- Expenditures – include an indication of cash or in-kind
- Reports – summary information available in individual columns instead of JSON
- Amended report status for all transactions (contributions, expenditures, loans)
In addition, there were occasions when we observed that some contributions and expenditures lacked a specified date of occurrence and mainly consisted of aggregated figures. To handle this situation, we assigned these records a default date of January 1, in the corresponding election year.
Party Information
Transparency USA displays the current party affiliation for active candidates and officeholders. The party information displayed may not be accurate:
- For candidates who are not actively running for or serving in state-level office
- When accessing candidate or officeholder data from previous election cycles
Party affiliation for active candidates and officeholders is provided by Ballotpedia.