Clarín (spanish) writes that the cross-province fragmentation of parties - which serve as “collectors” and resource supporters for the national candidates - mask the expenditures spent by each coalition. It also recognizes the huge disparity in expenditures for November’s election between the government and opposition coalitions ($17M for Cristina Fernandez’s Frente para Victoria versus $5.7M for Elisa Carrió’s Coalición […]

The Kansas City Star’s David Klepper writes: 
The Kansas House on Friday passed campaign finance bills to require political action committees to give more details about how they spend money and to clarify spending rules for candidates.
All four bills passed easily and now go to the Senate for consideration.
The most significant bill, HB 2408, would require political […]

Yesterday, the BBC reported:
Tory leader David Cameron and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg are among 14 MPs facing a reprimand for declaring donations too late.
The Electoral Commission notes a £7,285 helicopter flight donated to Mr Cameron in 2005 and six donations worth £14,490 to Mr Clegg, dating back to 2006.
MPs have to register donations over £1,000 […]

Tranparency International in Paraguay criticized the presidential candidates, Latinnews.com reports: “On 19 February a local NGO said that so far only presidential front-runner Fernando Lugo had agreed to publish his campaign accounts.”

From the Columbia Tribune Politics Blog:
The Missouri Senate gave initial approval by a voice vote Wednesday to legislation that would rescind caps on campaign contributions. … The bill would also require campaigns accepting donations of $5,000 or more to list the contribution online within 48 hours.
 

La Gaceta offers this editorial (spanish) about the expenditure reports - and the Federal Justice’s (JF) job in analyzing and regulating them - for last October’s presidential and legislative elections in Argentina. They say that the JF’s work is cut out for them given that a couple of candidates, including the new president Cristina Fernandez, overspent the allowed […]

In “Stealthy Groups Shake Up Races“, The Wall Street Journal writes about the various outside organizations that are spending lots of money this election outside of candidates and their campaigns:

Since the 2002 campaign-finance reforms, people who want to influence elections have looked for new ways. Most of their early organizations, like the Swift Boat group, […]

From Vermont, another take: “Campaign finance reform bill moving quickly through Legislature”
From Louisianna, an opinion: ”Jindal Ethics Flap Demands Louisiana Campaign Finance Reform”
From Minnesota, an explanation: ”The state reimburses some political donations.” Here, it is explained that citizens can get reimbursements for contributions made to candidates and parties (including the DFL - the Democratic-Farmer-Labour party).
The money comes […]

The NZ Herald reports:
The Electoral Finance Act has claimed its first scalp after a 21-year-old was obliged to take down his website when the Electoral Commission said it breached election rules by not including his name and address.
Andrew Moore, 21, set up the anti-Labour Party dontvotelabour.org.nz website this month but the commission contacted him soon […]

In discussions about casino licenses, proposals have been made to ban political donations from casinos and their management, reports EMOL (spanish).

After months of controversy and heated opposition, the Electoral Finance Bill passed into law today. The provisions according to the summary at the NZ Herald are:
Any group or person wishing to campaign for or against a particular candidate or political party, or policies held by a party, will fall under the third-parties regime…
…will have to […]

The BBC reports that Kenyan electoral authority has charged the state run broadcaster with violating the provision of equal time to all presidential candidates, instead providing biased coverage in favor of President Kibaki.

This week Feingold and collaborators released more information about their designs to resurrect the public financing system for presidential candidates, reports The Trail. The details:
The legislation would dramatically increase the amount of matching funds candidates received during the presidential primaries. Right now, candidates who opt to accept public financing (only John Edwards and Tom Tancredo […]

Juan Bolivar Diaz has another lengthy article at Clave Digitial on campaign finance regulations in the Dominican Republic, this time emphasizing that DR joins only Honduras in Latin America to lack any regulations campaigns transmitted on television and radio. In DR, he writes, the opposition to such regulations is framed in terms of maintaining free […]

The BBC reports:
Labour general secretary Peter Watt has resigned following the revelation that a property developer made donations to the party via three associates.
…Under the law, those making donations on behalf of others must give details of who is providing the money.
Watt said he was unaware of the precise reporting requirements at the time of […]

In response to allegations from the the Supreme Electoral Tribunal that they accepted money from impermissible sources during last year’s electoral campaign, the PSDB and its former presidential candidate argue that their accounts were “absolutely” regular, Folha reports (Portuguese). If they are found guilty, the PSDB would lose its free tv time for next year.

GMA News reports on ongoing efforts to enact public funding for parties in the Philippines:  
An international lawmakers’ group endorsed Saturday a Philippine proposal for state subsidy for political parties in a bid to reduce political corruption and bribery among political parties and their candidates.
…De Venecia’s state financing bill was approved at the Lower House […]

Elections Canada is currently in a lawsuit with the Tories about “in and outs” - transfers from parties to candidates who are then invoiced to pay for media advertisements for the party, although the ads may have taglines that say the message was paid for by the candidates. At issue is whether these should be […]

The NYTimes posted a front page article on how FEC and Supreme Court decisions has led — and will continue to lead — to a “shift away from 527 groups toward operating in the form of nonprofit, educational organizations” as a way for non-profits to spend unlimited amounts in the upcoming election (purportedly but not […]

An opposition lawyer intends to file legal proceedings alleging that the government’s attempts to finance with public money the campaign for Chavez’s proposed constitutional reforms is in violation of the (existing) 1999 constitution, reports Venevision (spanish).