N.C. For The People Action

In the past few election cycles, campaigns have changed how they communicate to voters. Digital ads on social media platforms are becoming the norm.  But North Carolina’s campaign finance disclosure laws have not kept up with changing technology. That slow reaction created a blind spot which outside spending groups exploit by running advertisements on Facebook and other digital platforms.  And this is a problem.  We’ve all seen the attack ads run against candidates with no idea who paid for them.  With an election coming up and campaigns moving into digital mediums this major loophole with wreak havoc on elections so we must act now. 

House Bill 700 is simple. North Carolina laws for electioneering communications, were written 20 years ago pre-digital ads and are defined to apply to newspaper, television, or radio ads placed 60 days before an election by outside spending groups.  Now this law needs to be updated to include digital political ads.

Campaign committees, political action committees, political committees, independent expenditures committees, and referendum committee already have to disclose for digital ad expenditures this captures groups that otherwise would not have to report.

Summary of Legislation

• Define the term “qualified digital communications” as any communication for fee, placed or promoted on a public facing website, web application or digital application, including social networks, advertising network or search engines.
• Clarify that these “qualified digital communications” are political ads placed within 60 days of an election by outside spending groups – electioneering communications.
• Require a disclosure legend in advertisements made through qualified digital communications indicating the sponsor of the advertisement. The disclosure must meet the following requirements:
  • Be either in letters as large as the smallest text in the qualified digital communication or in a heading similar section of text displayed above or within the qualified digital communication that is visually distinct.
  • Have a reasonable degree of color contrast between the background and disclosure statement.
• If the medium does not allow the disclosure statement to be disseminated in that manner, the display of the name of the person who paid for the qualified digital communication and a means to obtain the remainder of the information with minimal effort and without viewing additional information.
• Have copy of ad, including name of sponsor, city and state where sponsor is located, amount spend per candidate and date range of ad submitted to North Carolina State Board of Elections, similar to other disclosure requirements.