As the Dust Settles, We Go Again Quickly!

Good morning!

Congratulations to all of you who just filed your YESA Report by last Friday, January 30. Many of you are new candidate committees who just got going in December 2025.

Heads up…This is an election year for many and because of that, @NCSBE has another reporting deadline just ahead (20 days from now in fact).

If you are a party committee (or subsidiary) or a candidate committee whose candidate is on the ballot this year, you have your First Quarter Report due February 24.

Here’s the State Board’s reporting schedule for 2026: https://www.ncsbe.gov/campaign-finance/reporting-schedules/state-and-county-reporting-schedule

This feels a little fast…here’s why:

1) You just filed YESA last week. You’ve got to take a breath and reload quickly.

2) The First Quarter for campaign reporting purposes is short so that the reports come in before the March 3 Primary. This goes to the law’s policy choice for transparency in campaign funding right before the election.

3) @NCSBE Reports cover every calendar day throughout the year. This means that the First Quarter Report will cover January 1 through February 14 and 1Q Report is due ten days after by February 24. Recall that the YESA window reporting period closed December 31, 2025. The 1Q reporting period picks up beginning the next day.

4) There’s another concept out there called 48 Hour Reports that start February 15. We’ll write about that later this week or early next…

If you’re new to ElectaFile, we do what we can to remind everyone of the deadlines—whether you file your reports using ElectaFile or not. Why? Because if you don’t timely file your reports, @NCSBE is legally required to assess daily fines until those reports are filed. Those fines can stack up. While they can be waived, that is a cumbersome process and not guaranteed. Every dollar that goes to fines is one less dollar that goes to political speech. And freer political speech by all sides means better quality debate. That’s what we believe.

You should go ahead and get going on your 1Q Reports. The better part of valor is to file your reports timely and move forward. Have a great day and drop us a line if we can help. We offer free consultations to everyone. ElectaFile.com

Take good care!

The ElectaFile Team

**By the way, if you’re reading this message, you’ve subscribed to our newsletter or filed a report using ElectaFile or both. If you’d like to unsubscribe from these emails, please click the link on this email to unsubscribe. We mean to help and, if you leave, we part as friends.**