Idaho Secretary of State Releases New Campaign Finance and Election Results Online Search Tools

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Download the Press Release PDF

Date: December 29, 2021
Contact: Chad Houck, Chief Deputy Secretary of State
Phone: (208) 334-2852

Boise, Idaho — Dramatically redefining the previous user experience, The Idaho Secretary of State’s office today unveiled a fully reinvented user experience for searching and dissecting both campaign finance information and historical election results. The new interfaces, dubbed “Sunshine” and “Canvass”, put users at the center of the experience and make deep dives into the data more accessible for all.

Sunshine™ is a first of a kind product that provides members of the press, research professionals and Idaho voters with the ability to instantaneously dissect the financial reports of candidates, including campaign spending, loans and donations, in an environment that takes place without limits. Completely redesigned by UI professionals, Sunshine incorporates pre-release product feedback from subject matter experts around the state. It features search capabilities by candidates and PAC’s, contests, donors and donation totals, vendors and spending parameters and includes a thorough set of reports which can be easily downloaded by the user or filed for future use within the system itself.

Canvass™ provides research professionals, students, and social scientists with access to data-rich election results archives that Idaho constituents also appreciate. Incorporating the results of every election from 1990 through the most recent November 2021 election, the Secretary has provided a visually appealing, searchable database of historical election results that allows users to navigate specific years’ election data with a simple filters, rather than sifting through endless PDF documents.

According to Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney, “Sunshine and Canvass are forward thinking tools for anyone who wants up-to-date campaign finance information on candidates running for office in Idaho, or users interested in studying Idaho’s historical election results. These tools make Idaho’s publicly available election data infinitely more transparent and available to anyone, anywhere.”

Sunshine and Canvass are now available through sos.idaho.gov and ready to transform research in the areas of campaign finance and historical election results for years to come.

Lawerence Denney
Idaho Secretary of State

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ABOUT LAWERENCE DENNEY

Lawerence Denney has served the people of Idaho since 1990. His public service began as a representative in District 13 and, following redistricting, then became a representative in District 9 until 2014. During this time, Denney served two terms as Majority Leader and three terms as Speaker of the House before successfully running for state office as Idaho’s Secretary of State. He is currently in his second term as Secretary of State.

System Upgrade In Progress

Campaign Finance, Lobbyist Reporting, and Online Voter Tools are expected to be offline from April 9th at 5:00 p.m. MDT, through April 12th at 8:00 a.m. MDT to complete a system upgrade.

Per Idaho Code 67-6607, campaign finance is reported monthly during a campaign’s election year. The deadline for the March report falls on Saturday, April 10th. Due to the interruption caused by this upgrade, political treasurers will be allowed to file the March report until 11:59 p.m. MDT on Monday, April 12th.

While we do our best to ensure compliance with all deadlines in statute, the timing of this release is critical to ensure minimal (or no) impact to the May election cycle. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.