FEC Issues Three Advisory Opinions, Approves Finding in an Audit Memorandum, Releases Future Meeting Dates and Announces Public Forum on Website Improvement

The Federal Election Commission today issued three advisory opinions, approved a revised finding in an Audit Division Recommendation Memorandum and approved meeting dates for the remainder of the year. Chairman Lee E. Goodman and Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel announced an informal public forum on improving the Commission’s website, which is scheduled for September 17 at 10:00 a.m.

Advisory Opinion 2014-07 (Crowdpac). The Commission unanimously approved an advisory opinion in response to a request from Crowdpac. The Commission concluded that (1) Crowdpac’s proposed plan to develop a web-based platform to provide information about candidates to voters and potential donors would not result in impermissible contributions by Crowdpac to candidate committees; (2) Crowdpac may permit its users to earmark contributions for eventual nominees or prospective candidates; (3) Crowdpac may permit candidates to provide video content for Crowdpac candidate pages; and (4) Crowdpac may use data derived from Commission reports to display aggregated campaign finance data about candidates, use such data in its algorithm, and display on its website the names, cities and states of individual contributors identified from reports filed with the Commission for the purpose of explaining the functionality of its algorithm. During the discussion, the Commission heard from counsel on behalf of the requestor.

Source: Open Meeting