NOTE: A candidate may or may not have a principal candidate committee; and, that committee may or may not be filing campaign finance reports on their behalf.
Candidates have an option to indicate that their candidate committee will be filing campaign finance reports on their behalf during the election year cycle.
This designation may only occur by the candidate, either during initial account creation or by modifying the Account Details after the account is created and approved.
During Account Creation
In Step 1 of the Candidate Account Creation process, the user is presented with the option to indicate if their committee is reporting on their behalf. If the user has a candidate committee which will be filing campaign finance reports on their behalf during the election year in which the account is being formed AND that candidate committee has already been formed, the user will want to check the box indicating that. Once the checkbox is selected, a list of candidate committees will be provided from which the user may select the committee which will be filing campaign finance information on their behalf.
After Account Creation
If your candidate committee has not yet formed, you will be able to make this change to your candidate account details after your committee has been formed and approved by the Secretary of State's Office. You will make this change in the Account Details of your candidate account.
Just as the reporting designation may be created within the Account Details, it can also be broken. If the candidate no longer wishes to have the committee report on their behalf, the user will simply navigate to Account Details and deselect the designation. Three important notations:
1.The designation may only be removed if the candidate committee has filed all statutorily required reports due to date.
2.Once the committee is no longer designated to report on behalf of the candidate, the candidate is required to file all remaining reports up to account closure.
3.If the candidate committee is still active (has not terminated) and is still the principal committee, the candidate should be sure to designate that committee to ensure that contributions and expenditures appearing on the public website in Charts & Graphs accurately reflect the relationship between the two account types.
Candidate Account Details When Committee Is Reporting on Behalf
When a candidate has designated that their committee is reporting campaign finance information on their behalf, the menu options for the candidate account are limited.
Functionality of each menu item is identical as described in other portions of this document: