Campaign Finance?

Question

What are the conditions under which a candidate of a major party can receive public financing?
But if you are a third party candidate what must you do to receive public financing?

Answer 1

By way of background, all candidates who take contributions for elections to federal offices are required to file quarterly reports with the Federal Election Commission.

During the primary season, if a candidate receives $5,000.00 in contributions of less $250 each in 20 states, then that candidate receives matching funds (dollar for dollar for all contributions less than $250). A candidate who accepts matching funds is limited to spending a total of approximately $40 million during the primary season. (The actual limits for 2008 have not been announced so I am using a rough estimate from 2004). As such, several candidates will probably opt out of public financing during the primary season.

During the general election, the Presidential ticket of all parties that received more than 25% of the vote in the last federal election (amazingly only the Democratic Party and the Republican Party since this rule was enacted) get approximately $75 million each. If a Presidential ticket accepts public financing, it is only allowed to raise money for the administrative expenses of complying with reporting expenditures. Of course, as with the primary, a ticket could choose to reject public financing.

At the present time, no third party candidate is eligible to receive public financing for the general election. To be eligible to receive funding prior to the election,the party must have received 5% of the vote in the last election. If a party does meet that threshold, they get a percentage of the amount given to the major parties (e.g. if the Green Party got 10% of the vote and the two major parties averaged 40% of the vote, the Green Party would receive 25% of the funding that each of the major parties got). A third party may get funding reimbursed after the election if they meet the 5% requirement.

Answer 2

Campaign contributions must be accounted and must not be over as allowed under the law.

For third party candidates, just the same account and report all contributions to the Election office.