Lehigh County Campaign Finance Reports Available Online

While Northampton County Council squabbles over who gets to vote last, Lehigh County Commissioners have focused on a strange concept. It's called government.

As a result of an initiative adopted earlier this year, campaign finance reports for Lehigh County candidates are available online, and can be accessed here. (I have also posted the link on my left sidebar.) Twenty-seven post primary reports are available for your review. Here's a few words from my favorite Republican, Commissioner Dean Browning:

"The easy part was voting to make this a requirement for County candidates. Stacy Sterner in Voter Registration and our IT folks had the harder job of making it work. There was some concern about posting the signature page of the reports online. Stacy's solution was to use the summary page used for state filings and transcribe the information on the signature page onto that form. The rest of the campaign finance reports are posted online as they were submitted. Also, Stacy and her folks scanned all the reports so they had a uniform look. They were able to get all this done and and put the reports up on our website the day after the filing deadline. Kudos to our Voter Registration and IT Departments.

"This is certainly something that Northampton County, Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton could do if they wanted to.

"This is one small item but certainly something local governments can easily do to make things more accessible."

Northampton County Council, unlike Lehigh, allowed campaign finance reform to die. So County Exec John Stoffa has ordered that campaign finance reports be posted online. But we move much more slowly, and Lehigh County Commishes are now working on a new airline.