Filing and Research Tools: From a Yard Sign to the People Who Paid

Every lesson before this one ends at a filing. This one is about the filings themselves: where a treasurer submits them and where anyone else finds them. The tools are free. They are also uneven. Some search well and some barely search at all, and none of them connects to the others. The skill is knowing which record answers which question, and in what order to pull them. If you have never read a report line by line, start with Reading a Report Step by Step and come back.

The Idaho Sunshine portals

As of October 2026 Idaho runs two public campaign finance sites, and you will use both.

Site	What it is for	What to know
sunshine.voteidaho.gov	Filing: candidates and PACs register and file; independent spenders and electioneering filers can file without an account; lobbyists register and report at /lobbyists	The Secretary of State's campaign finance page sends everyone here to file. The lobbyist report search and a top-spending summary also live here.
sunshine.sos.idaho.gov	The legacy public search, titled "Sunshine: Idaho Campaign Finance"	Election-year menus run 2019 to 2026, and the page says it updates every four hours. The Secretary of State says records for local candidates not running in 2024 remain here.
County clerk or city clerk	Local candidate records from before 2020	The Secretary of State says pre-2020 local records are kept by the taxing district. Use Find Your County Clerk.

The legacy search organizes everything around five groups of filters. Candidates and PACs, by committee type, treasurer, contest, office, party and stage. Donors and donations, by donor and donation type. Vendors and spending, by vendor, spending type and spending code. Reports, the filed documents. And an activity filter by date (1, 7 or 30 days, or all), activity type (donations, spending, filing) and dollar range. The activity filter set to "1 Day" and "Donations" is the fastest way to catch 48-hour notices in the last weeks of a race. The legacy page shows no download button. If you need a full dataset for a spreadsheet, the Secretary of State takes public records requests through its online records portal, the same portal its site links as "Sunshine Act Violations." Pierson's Idaho FOIA / Public Records Letter Generator drafts the request.

Guides and the filing calendar

The campaign finance page links the core documents: the disclosure manual, the Sunshine Lawbook, a "How to Set Up a Campaign" tip sheet, separate state and local guides, training videos recorded in March 2026 (candidates) and April 2026 (committees), and the Secretary of State's guidance documents: churches and religious organizations, political party coordination, FEC-registered entities, nonbusiness entities, online transaction fees and legal fees.

The 2026 reporting schedule is short enough to tape to a wall. Candidates running in 2026, and PACs giving in 2026 races, file monthly by the 10th for the month before, from February 10 (January activity) through December 10 (November activity), plus the report covering December. Candidates not on the 2026 ballot file one annual report, due January 10, 2027. County candidates below the $500 threshold in Idaho Code 67-6608(1) do not open an account or file monthly reports. Every contribution of $1,000 or more needs a 48-hour report no matter the period. And the manual is blunt on two points: the Sunshine Law gives the Secretary of State no power to grant extensions, and a missed reminder email is no excuse. Late fees run $50 a day.

Federal money: FEC.gov

Idaho's congressional and presidential candidates, and any PAC or Super PAC spending in those races, report to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC data pages offer searches for candidates, committees, individual contributions and spending, plus bulk data. Unlike Idaho reports, FEC reports list a donor's employer and occupation once gifts pass $200, which makes it easy to see employees of one company giving together. The elections course covers FEC forms in Federal FEC Reports.

Two Idaho cross-checks are worth the minute. First, search the FEC for the name of any committee in an Idaho race, because a group may be registered federally and still owe Idaho reports; the Secretary of State's FEC-registered entity guidance covers when. Second, search FEC individual contributions by a big Idaho donor's name and ZIP code. The employer field often tells you what the Idaho report left out.

Nonprofit and 527 records

Tool	What it holds	Limits
IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search	Search by name or EIN, city and state across Pub 78 (charities eligible for deductible gifts), the auto-revocation list, determination letters, Form 990-N postcards and copies of returns (990, 990-EZ, 990-PF, 990-T)	Confirms status and pulls returns; slow for browsing
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer	Summary data and full Form 990 documents for groups in all 27 501(c) subsections that file a 990, 990-EZ or 990-PF; search by organization, by person, or the full text of filings	Leaves out small groups that file only the 990-N postcard
IRS Political Organization search	Forms 8871, 8872 and 990 for federal 527s; paper filings back to January 2012; a bulk download	Idaho candidate committees and PACs are not here; they report to the state

A Form 990 will not name a (c)(4)'s donors. It will name officers, directors and key employees with their pay, show total revenue and spending, and list grants the group made to other organizations. The grants schedule is how you find out that a nonprofit funded another nonprofit that funded the Idaho PAC. For what Idaho law requires of nonprofits that spend, see lesson 8.

OpenSecrets is the nonprofit research group formed in 2021 when the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracked federal money, merged with the National Institute on Money in Politics, which tracked state money at FollowTheMoney.org, Maryland Matters reported. Its summaries are handy for comparisons across states. For anything you will cite, go back to the Sunshine or FEC filing the summary was built from.

Ads: platform libraries and station files

Meta. Meta's policy on ads about social issues, elections or politics requires authorization and a verified "Paid for by" disclaimer. Ads that run without one are disapproved and added to the Ad Library, Meta's searchable archive at facebook.com/ads/library. Meta also requires a disclosure when such an ad uses photorealistic images, video or realistic audio that was digitally created or altered. Search the library by the sponsor's name or by a candidate's name, and filter to Idaho.

Google. Google's political content policy requires verification for US election ads, defined as ads featuring federal or state candidates and officeholders, parties, or state ballot measures that have qualified. As of October 2026 the policy lists Idaho, with Nevada and New Jersey, as a state where ads for local elections are not allowed. So a county commission race or a city levy campaign should not show up in Google's election ad archive, and an ad for one on Google's network is itself worth noting. Verified election ads appear in the Google Ads Transparency Center at adstransparency.google.com.

Broadcast and cable. TV and radio stations, cable systems and satellite providers keep public files, posted at publicfiles.fcc.gov. Search a station by call sign or a cable system by ZIP code, then open its political file. The FCC's political programming page says those files cover requests to buy time by or for legally qualified candidates, free time given to candidates, and time bought by issue advertisers on a political matter of national importance. Buy records usually name the media buyer and flight dates, which is how you connect a "Summit Media LLC" line on a campaign report to a run of spots. FCC political programming staff take questions at (202) 418-1440 or campaignlaw@fcc.gov.

Business records

The Idaho Secretary of State's business search is where an LLC on a donor list turns into people. Search the exact name and open the record and its filings. The registered agent is often a lawyer's office or a commercial filing service, which tells you little. The formation documents and annual reports may name the people who run the company. For an out-of-state company, check the business registry in its home state too. This matters for more than curiosity: under Idaho Code 67-6610A, businesses with common ownership share one contribution limit, and in 2026 the Secretary of State handled a complaint about three LLCs with one owner giving $1,000 each to the same candidates. Lesson 11 covers that case.

Questions and answers

The questions below come up whenever someone first tries to trace a campaign's money. For who may give to whom, see lesson 13.

Do I need an account to see who gave to a candidate?

No. Searching is open to anyone on sunshine.sos.idaho.gov and on the public pages of sunshine.voteidaho.gov. Accounts are for filers. You do not have to give your name or a reason to look.

What does an Idaho report tell me about a donor?

Name, complete address, amount and date for anyone whose gifts total more than $50, under Idaho Code 67-6607. Gifts of $50 or less can be lumped together as one total. Idaho does not require the donor's employer or occupation, which is why the FEC search on the same name is worth a minute: federal reports carry employer and occupation once a donor passes $200.

I cannot find my county commissioner's campaign at all. Did she break the law?

Not necessarily. A county candidate who has not passed the $500 threshold in 67-6608(1) does not open an account or file monthly reports. Records from before 2020 are kept by the local taxing district, usually through the county or city clerk, the Secretary of State says, and some local records for candidates who did not run in 2024 remain on the legacy site. Check all three, then ask the county clerk or the Secretary of State's office whether anything was due.

Can I download a whole committee's data into a spreadsheet?

The legacy Idaho search shows no download button. You can copy search results, download each filed report, or ask the Secretary of State for the dataset through its records portal. Federal data is easier: the FEC and the IRS 527 search both offer bulk downloads.

How do I find out who gave money to a nonprofit that ran ads?

Usually you cannot from IRS records. The public copy of a Form 990 does not name a 501(c)(4)'s donors. Idaho law can reach them: a nonprofit that spends on Idaho elections may have to register as a PAC or file a nonbusiness entity statement listing its donors, covered in lesson 8. A 527 is different: its Form 8872 lists every contributor who gave $200 or more in a year, with occupation and employer for individuals, under 26 U.S.C. 527(j), though state and local candidate committees and certain state-only groups are exempt from that federal filing.

How fast do last-minute donations show up?

Any contribution of $1,000 or more must be reported within 48 hours, under 67-6607(3). On the legacy search, set the activity filter to "1 Day" and "Donations" each morning in the last weeks of a race. Independent expenditures of $1,000 or more in the final 16 days also have 48-hour reports, covered in lesson 5.

Who bought that TV ad?

The station's political file will show it. Find the station by call sign on publicfiles.fcc.gov, open its political file, and look for the order with the sponsor's name, the media buyer and the flight dates. Cable buys are filed by system, which you can search by ZIP code.

A mailer has no "Paid for by" line. Where do I report it?

For a state or legislative race or a statewide measure, the Secretary of State's elections division; for a local race, the county clerk. Keep the mailer, the envelope and the date it arrived. Lesson 11 walks through the complaint, and lesson 6 covers the disclaimer rule itself.

Hard questions

Isn't posting donors' names and home addresses online an invitation to harassment?

Idaho has decided that the public's interest in seeing who funds campaigns outweighs donor privacy for anyone giving more than $50, and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld disclosure as a general matter since Buckley v. Valeo (1976), covered in lesson 5. The Court has also carved out an exception: in Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Committee (1982), it held that a group showing a reasonable probability of threats, harassment or reprisals can be exempted. Ordinary donors cannot claim that exemption on worry alone. The $50 line is low, and a person who gives $60 to a school board candidate puts a home address in a public database. Whether that threshold should be higher is a fair policy question for the Legislature.

If the records are public, why make people file records requests to get the data?

Because the legacy search was built to look things up one at a time, and it shows no export button. Nothing in the Sunshine Law requires a bulk download. The FEC and the IRS 527 database both offer one, which shows it can be done. Until Idaho does, a records request is the route, and the request itself is a public record of what the office was asked for.

Can't anyone hide behind an LLC?

Partly. A gift from an LLC is reported under the LLC's name, and Idaho business filings may name only a registered agent. Idaho's answer is the common-ownership rule in 67-6610A, which counts related businesses as one contributor, and the 2026 case of three LLCs with one owner shows it gets enforced when someone notices. Giving under a false name, anonymously or through someone else to hide the real source is barred by 67-6614. And any gift over $50 must come with the giver's name and address under 67-6610; money from a giver who cannot be identified goes to the state's public school fund. But no Idaho statute requires a candidate's report to list the people who own an LLC donor, so the tracing in this lesson is still the reader's job.

Do the ad libraries catch everything?

No. Meta's library holds ads that ran or tried to run under its political ad rules. Google does not allow ads for local elections in Idaho, so its archive will not show a county or city race at all. Mail, door hangers, signs, texts and robocalls have no library anywhere. The libraries help with one slice of a campaign, and a researcher who relies on them alone will miss most local spending.

Why trust OpenSecrets or ProPublica instead of going to the filing?

You should not, for anything you print. Both are useful indexes built from public filings, and both can lag, merge names or miss amendments. Use them to find the filing, then cite the filing with its period and date.