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Don’t miss your chance to provide some public feedback to the State Campaign Spending Commission.

According to the commission’s website:

The Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission (“Commission”) would appreciate your opinion and time to help evaluate and improve the effectiveness of our operations and communications.

Our web-based survey is easy to use and will take about five to ten minutes to complete. You will be asked questions about your relationship with the Commission or background information, communication with or access to the Commission, education and training employed by the Commission, public funding, and other miscellaneous matters. The results of the survey will be reported in the aggregate form and you will remain anonymous.

The survey doesn’t take long to complete.

It first asks for background information, and whether you are a candidate, an officer of a candidate or non candidate committee, a member of the media, part of a good government group, etc.

Then there are a series of questions about the commission’s use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter.

After asking whether you have “liked” the commission’s Facebook page, the next questions asks: “Do you plan to do so?”

Then there are questions about other commission resources, including training videos and guidebooks. The questions are straightforward. Have you used any of them? Did you know they were available?

Then there’s a question about whether you support public financing. If so, why? If not, why not?
Oh, did I mention the 100 character limit on responses?

Then comes a bit of push polling:

DID YOU KNOW THAT THE COMMISSION’S OPERATIONS AND PUBLIC FUNDING PROGRAMS ARE DEPENDENT ON THE $3 CHECK-OFF ON YOUR STATE INCOME TAX FORM?

DID YOU KNOW THAT CHECKING THE $3 CHECK-OFF DOES NOT INCREASE YOUR TAX LIABILITY OR DECREASE YOUR REFUND? (check one)

WILL YOU PLEASE HELP US AND REMEMBER TO CHECK THE $3 CHECK-OFF ON YOUR NEXT STATE INCOME TAX FORM? (check one)

At the end, the survey asks if you are concerned about Super PACs.

Absent are any questions about the way campaign data is made available through the website, and ways to improve the usability of contribution and expenditure data. The system hasn’t been overhauled in a while, and I don’t know whether the commission is exploring ways to improve its public accessibility. But at least the commission is taking a first step in seeking public input.

Take the survey and encourage them to continue down this path!