What Happens to Candidate Committees After the Primary?

ElectaFile Short Summary: Well done to all who entered the campaign arena! What next for primary candidate campaign committees? What about other committees that want to wrap it up? We tell you about three options: i) carrying on; ii) going inactive; and iii) closing…

Hats off to all of the candidates across North Carolina who had the guts and the support to stand up and be counted at this year’s primary election. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud!

It’s been two weeks since the election, and we can only imagine the feelings of relief, excitement, and exhaustion that all candidates, volunteers, professionals, and their families must feel. Yet, the beat goes on for general election candidates and those candidates who must rush once more into the breach for the less common primary runoffs later this year…

Today’s post is about what candidate Committees (and other committees) can do when the campaign is over.

Generally, there are three options: carry on, “go Inactive,” or close.

Carrying on simply means continuing to file reports according to the State Board specified reporting schedule. For example, a committee that does nothing else will have 2Q, 3Q Plus, and 4Q 2024 reporting obligations in the coming months. And then you’re on to 2025…

There are plenty of reasons that a committee might carry on even if its candidate is no longer on the ballot in 2024. Perhaps the committee seeks to influence other races—perhaps the candidate intends to run again. Suffice to say, any reason to continue will do—it’s most important that candidate committees understand that if it does nothing, the State Board expects you to continue to file in a timely fashion.

Pro Tip: It is an expensive mistake to assume that because your candidate lost in the primary that campaign reporting obligations end. They do not unless you take specific action!

Going Inactive means essentially freezing your campaign committee’s activity as it is and taking no further action until you file something else with the State Board. “Going inactive,” means accepting no contributions and making no expenditures.

One reason you might go inactive is during the period your committee is inactive, you do not file reports with the State Board. You might do this if your committee wants to keep options open without having to file more reports.

To go inactive, committees must file a CRO-3200 form together with whatever report is next due at the time the CRO 3200 is filed. This means that if you filed a CRO-3200 tomorrow, you would also need to file the 2Q Report at the same time.

Here’s the State Campaign Finance Manual’s Word on It:

Pro Tip: If you “go inactive,” you would need to “reactivate your committee,” if you wanted to begin again to accept contributions or make expenditures. To do that, you file a CRO 3300 form.

Closing the Committee means essentially winding up the affairs and dissolving the committee.

Closing the committee means finally accounting for all of the funds in the committee’s account and all of the committees liabilities, including penalties owed to the Board of Elections. The key document is the CRO-3400 form, which kicks off—but does not end—the closure process.

Pro Tip: Closing committees of different types is a largely identical process. The Campaign Finance Manual discusses the approach for each type of committee but the discussions are substantially similar. Note that a key distinction occurs early based on whether you previously filed an “under threshold” certificate which we’ll talk about next week…

Here’s the Campaign Finance Manual’s Word on Candidate Campaign Committee closure:

Key points on closure:

1. It is not done until the State Board confirms. Merely filing the form is not enough.

2. Your reporting obligations continue until closure is confirmed.

3. Fines can continue to accrue until closure is confirmed.

4. You cannot close unless you account for all penalties owed and disclose the disposition of all of the funds in the account.

5. Often times, finding the cash to pay fines and penalties before closure is the toughest part.

Go get’em

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