We will add four (4) new transaction type codes, 10J, 11J, 20Y and 21Y, to our data categorization scheme beginning September 9, 2012. 10J and 11J will be included in OTH12. 20Y and 21Y will be included in INDIV12. We will update transactions for report years 2011 and 2012 so that coding is consistent for the 2-year reporting period. 10J - Memo Receipt from Joint Fundraising Committee - Super PAC (memo item that supports a 18G transfer) Currently these transactions are coded as 10s. 11J - Memo Receipt from Joint Fundraising Committee - Tribal (memo item that supports a 18G transfer) Currently these transactions are coded as 15Js. 20Y - Nonfederal Contribution Refund (refund code for transaction type 10) Currently these transactions are coded as negative 10s. 21Y - Tribal Contribution Refund (refund code for transaction type 11) Currently these transactions are coded as negative 11s.
A recent blog raised concerns that the FEC may have deleted certain data with respect to large contributions during a certain timeframe in the recent past. The suggestion is incorrect. The data have always been available to the public on the FEC website through the Report Image Search and also through our Public Disclosure Office. At no time was this or any other campaign finance information removed from the public record. On April 15, 2012, the FEC transferred some files that are used to transmit large data sets to researchers from an older database to a more modern database. During this process, it appears that a transaction code from the data files was inadvertently overlooked. As a result, some data reported on the FEC Form 5, the Report of Independent Expenditures Made and Contributions Received, were not transmitted to the newer database. This technical problem will be corrected by tomorrow night (07/18/2012). As part of an ongoing effort to improve our systems, the FEC is currently in the process of implementing a new Data Warehouse. This and other initiatives spurred by public input will assist the public, press, and researchers to access campaign finance data in a more efficient and user-friendly manner. The FEC encourages researchers and reporters to raise issues such as this with our press or public information officers in order to avoid inaccurate reporting and resolve technical issues as expeditiously as possible
Here are the sample data files for the files FEC will convert to pipe delimited text format at the end of this month. The compressed file contains sample files for CN, CM, WEB* and CCL. cn12_sample.txt cm12_sample.txt webk12_sample.txt webl12_sample.txt webl12all_sample.txt ccl12_sample.txt file_formats_cm_cn_webk_webl_weball_ccl_20120615.xlsx The FEC will convert five more FTP files to pipe delimited text files and produce a new linkage file. We will also change the file extension from .dta to .txt on all the weekly FTP files (INDIV, PAS2, OTH, CM, CN, WEBK, WEBL and WEBALL) We will place the newly converted files in the appropriate 2-year period folder on the FTP server. We have changed some of the data elements and their order in the Candidate Master (CN) file and the PAC Financial Summaries (WEBK) file. Please review these changes. We have not changed the data elements or the order of the data elements in the other files: Committee Master (CM), Candidate Financial Summaries - Current Candidates (WEBL) and Candidate Financial Summaries - All Candidates (WEBALL). Once we start producing the files in the new format we will no longer produce the files in the old format. The last update for the current format will be 07/22/2012. The update on Sunday 07/29/2012 will be in the new format. The FTP files to be converted are: Existing Files CMxx (Committee Master) CN (Candidate Master) WEBK (PAC Financial Summaries) WEBL (Candidate Financial Summaries - Current Candidates) WEBALL (Candidate Financial Summaries - All Candidates) New File CCLxx (Candidate Committee Linkage) The candidate committee linkage file will help you associate candidates with their campaign committees (principle and other authorized) and joint fundraising committee
The FEC will convert five more FTP files to pipe delimited text files and produce a new linkage file. We will also change the file extension from .dta to .txt on all the weekly FTP files (INDIV, PAS2, OTH, CM, CN, WEBK, WEBL and WEBALL) We will place the newly converted files in the appropriate 2-year period folder on the FTP server. We have changed some of the data elements and their order in the Candidate Master (CN) file and the PAC Financial Summaries (WEBK) file. Please review these changes. We have not changed the data elements or the order of the data elements in the other files: Committee Master (CM), Candidate Financial Summaries - Current Candidates (WEBL) and Candidate Financial Summaries - All Candidates (WEBALL). I've attached the file formats here. Once we start producing the files in the new format we will no longer produce the files in the old format. The last update for the current format will be 07/22/2012. The update on Sunday 07/29/2012 will be in the new format.
The FTP files to be converted are:
Existing Files
CMxx (Committee Master)
CN (Candidate Master)
WEBK (PAC Financial Summaries)
WEBL (Candidate Financial Summaries - Current Candidates)
WEBALL (Candidate Financial Summaries - All Candidates)
New File
CCLxx (Candidate Committee Linkage)
The candidate committee linkage file will help you associate candidates with their campaign committees (principle and other authorized) and joint fundraising committee
The new file formats went live April 15, 2012. The end-of-line (EOL) marker is line feed '\n' (LF, 0x0A, 10 in decimal). The data files are here. Links to the final file formats are below.
INDIVxx (Contributions by Individual)
PASS2xx (Contributions to Candidates (and other expenditures) from Committees)
OTHxx (Any Transaction from One Committee to Another)
The new files are pipe delimited. There are numerous differences in the file formats when compared to the old fixed width file formats. The FEC Record number will be 19 digits instead of 7 digits. We will include both employer and occupation as separate data fields. The transaction date is in a single data field. Please review the file formats carefully.
We added three (3) columns: FEC electronic file number, transaction ID and entity type.
I'm sorry for the additional delay. We are still still doing internal testing and data verification. The last update for the current format will be April 8, 2012. The files produced on April 15, 2012 will be in the new format. INDIVxx (Contributions by Individual) PASS2xx (Contributions to Candidates (and other expenditures) from Committees) OTHxx (Any Transaction from One Committee to Another) There are numerous differences in the file formats when compared to the current fixed width file formats. The compressed file contains three (3) sample data files containing 10,001 records each and one (1) spreadsheet containing format descriptions for the data files. The files will be placed in election cycle specific folders on the FTP server. Here are a few of the changes. The FEC Record number is now 19 digits instead of 7 digits. We include both employer and occupation as separate data fields. The transaction date is in a single data field. We have added entity type and transaction id. There are numerous changes highlighted in red in the downloadable file format spreadsheet. Please review the file formats carefully. Once we start producing the files in the new format(s) we will no longer produce the files in the old format.
We plan to put the new files into production the week of March 19, 2012. The files produced on March 25, 2012 will be in the new format.
INDIVxx (Contributions by Individual)
PASS2xx (Contributions to Candidates (and other expenditures) from Committees)
OTHxx (Any Transaction from One Committee to Another)
There are numerous differences in the file formats when compared to the current fixed width file formats. The compressed file contains three (3) sample data files containing 10,001 records each and one (1) spreadsheet containing format descriptions for the data files.
The files will be placed in election cycle specific folders on the FTP server.
Here are a few of the changes. The FEC Record number is now 19 digits instead of 7 digits. We include both employer and occupation as separate data fields. The transaction date is in a single data field. We have added entity type and transaction id. There are numerous changes highlighted in red in the downloadable file format spreadsheet. Please review the file formats carefully.
Once we start producing the files in the new format(s) we will no longer produce the files in the old format.
We are still doing internal testing and need to push back the release date for these new file formats.
The last update for the current format will be March 18, 2012. The files produced on March 25, 2012 will be in the new format.
The FEC will start producing the transaction level FTP files in a new format. The FTP files that we will produce in the new format are:
INDIVxx (Contributions by Individual)
PASS2xx (Contributions to Candidates (and other expenditures) from Committees)
OTHxx (Any Transaction from One Committee to Another)
The new files will be pipe delimited. There are numerous differences in the file formats when compared to the current fixed width file formats. The FEC Record number will be 19 digits instead of 7 digits. We will include both employer and occupation as separate data fields. The transaction date is in a single data field. Please review the file formats carefully.
We will also be adding three (3) columns: FEC electronic file number, transaction ID and entity type.
Soon the FEC will start producing the transaction level FTP files in a new format. The FTP files that we will produce in the new format are:
INDIVxx (Contributions by Individual)
PASS2xx (Contributions to Candidates (and other expenditures) from Committees)
OTHxx (Any Transaction from One Committee to Another)
We are requesting your input about these file formats. The sample files we have produced are fixed width and semicolon delimited. These sample files are attached to this e-mail. There are numerous differences in the file formats when compared to the current fixed width file formats. We've tried to make the new file formats as consistent as possible. PAS2 has an additional data column - Candidate ID.
Here are a few of the changes. The FEC Record number is now 19 digits instead of 7 digits. We include both employer and occupation as separate data fields. The transaction date is in a single data field. There are numerous changes highlighted in red in the downloadable file format spreadsheet. Please review the file formats carefully.
Should we exclude employer and occupation from OTH? Do you want these files in both formats? We are not ready to produce additional formats but that's coming. Does a semicolon delimiter work or would some other delimiter work better?
Once we start producing the files in the new format(s) we will no longer produce the files in the old format. The last update for the current format will be 02/26/2012. We will put the new files into production the week of February 27, 2012 and the files produced on March 4, 2012 will be in the new format.
As we reach the first regular financial filing day of 2011 for campaign committees - reports that cover from January 1 through March 31 - take a look at the new campaign finance maps we're presenting at www.fec.gov.[Read More]
As we prepare to receive the first financial reports of the 2012 election cycle we've put together a page with links to background information on the Presidential race.You will find listings of all the individuals who have filed statements of candidacy for President in 2012 along with historical tables showing activity through the first quarter of off years in previous campaigns and a list of the largest fundraising quarters from the past. When reports come in we will also have a link here to get summaries from each of the filings, just as we did in 2008.[Read More]
We sat down yesterday afternoon with a group of users of our FTP files to talk about changes we're planning as we move to a different database platform. First, thanks to everyone who participated - it was very helpful to us and hopefully will improve what we are able to provide going forward.[Read More]
We're getting ready to implement some internal changes that will effect the information we provide in files on our FTP server. Before we throw the switch we want to explain the biggest differences you'll see initially and invite you to let us know if these will cause real problems for you and any ideas you have to overcome those problems.[Read More]
We've started work on several projects for the 2012 election cycle. Take a look at this list and let us know if we've missed something important or if you have ideas about anything you see here. We plan to have several of these ready for the April quarterly filings this year while others (presidential campaign summaries, more itemized data files) may take a little longer.
We're happy to hear from you with ideas for any of these or different data projects you think we should be working on in this cycle.
Today we're releasing a new addition to the data catalog - financial summaries for campaigns and committees that give an overview of financial activity in each reporting period during the election cycle.[Read More]