Zen & the Art of Campaign Compliance: 3 Legit. Traps We're Hearing About...

Good morning!

We wrote 3 days ago because you’ve probably got a deadline in less than 2 weeks. It’s called a Year End Semi Annual Report—books closed 12/31 and report is due 1/30.

Congratulations to the hard chargers who’ve already filed! ElectaFile usage is up 18% year over year and it's still early yet—thanks!

We are writing again quickly to relay three traps we’ve heard about across the State from regulators who are issue spotting and asked us to pass the word:

1. Tracking Your Statement of Organization. If you think filed your Statement of Organization with your County Board of Elections but it technically should have been filed in Raleigh, your County Board may have told you “we’ll send it up to Raleigh for you…'“ Right now, the thing you’re waiting on from Raleigh is called a Committee ID number.

   However, If you don’t see your filed Statement of Org on the State Board website by now (look at this list for your name to start if you filed in 2025), two things are true: 1) your Statement of Org hasn’t made it to Raleigh by now and 2) you don’t yet have an ID to include on your YESA report.

   

2. What to Do if Your Statement of Organization Went by Way of Cape Horn? If you cannot find your Statement of Org. (and your ID number) on the State Board’s website by now (search here: https://www.ncsbe.gov/campaign-finance/search-campaign-funding-and-spending-reports-and-penalties), do these two things:

   1. Call the County Board of Elections. Ask them to check if the Statement of Organization went to Raleigh. It may be lost in their office or in the mail. Either way, run it down. If you or they cannot find it, we recommend going ahead and filing a new one anyway. This document is Step 1, Minute 1 of your relationship with the State Board of Elections. We can help with this so just let us know.

   2. File Your Org. Report & YESA Anyway. Do not get flummoxed by the lack of a State Board of ID. File your reports anyway. Our newsletter website has all sorts of info on the Org Report (distinct from Statement of Org), the YESA, etc. Get after it. Don’t wait for the ID number.

3. Remember the Signatures; Do it the Right Way. About two years ago, State Board with much fanfare (and our support!) started accepting a distinct type of e-signatures: Adobe Certificate Signatures. Reports without signatures are deemed late. But it’s not just any signature. Don’t use the doodle feature on Adobe—you may feel like a seasoned Gen Zer electronically signing your name with a mouse, but you must use Adobe Certificate Signatures. Here’s the State Board’s directions on how do just that. ElectaFile can help!

   While researching the history of signatures (oh, yes, we did), we came across this well-written blog post about the distinction between Electronic Signature and Digital Signature. Up until this very moment, we used them interchangeably. Thanks to the blog post, we won’t make that mistake again.

   

   Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR) (as the youth say): State Board accepts Digital Signatures from Adobe Certificate Signatures only; State Board does not accept Electronic Signatures. There is only one success path on this.

We can help with all of this, but we also want you to be able to help yourself. Watch out for these three things: 1) Statement of Org; 2) Board ID Number; 3) Signatures Get Messy.

Go get’em.

The ElectaFile Team

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