Last Pre-Election Fair Elections Fund Disbursement Totals

Published on March 20, 2023

Last Pre-Election Fair Elections Fund Disbursement Totals

DENVER – On Tuesday, March 21, the Office of the Denver Clerk and Recorder will authorize the last round of payments from the Fair Elections Fund preceding the April 2023 Municipal Election, corresponding to the reporting period ending on March 6, for qualifying contributions made February 1-28. Totals have been provided in a separate table and have been updated on the Searchlight platform. The next reporting deadline is March 31, but those and any subsequent contributions will not be eligible for the match. Fair Elections Fund qualified candidates who appear in the anticipated runoff election on June 6 can receive 25% of the total amount that was disbursed from the Fund to their committee prior to April 4.

As a reminder, Searchlight displays contributions, including small donor contributions, on a rolling basis whenever a campaign committee submits or amends reporting through the platform. These contributions are displayed independently of the matched Fair Elections Fund updates which our office makes to the platform upon authorization each reporting period. Independent expenditures and committee information is also available on Searchlight as they are reported in the platform.

About the Fund
The Fair Elections Fund matches individual donations of up to $50 at a ratio of 9 to 1 out of a fund totaling $8 million, including the cost of administration. The April 2023 Municipal Election is the first municipal election since the implementation of the Fair Elections Fund. In the 2018 General Election, voters passed the citizen-initiated measure that created the fund.

To release matched funds to candidates, the Office of the Denver Clerk and Recorder must verify the residency and eligibility of each submitted donor using a multi-step, audited process. After the Clerk and Recorder’s Office authorizes payment, the Controller’s Office in the Department of Finance processes and disburses payments.

Information about participating campaigns, qualifying contributions and payment disbursements is available to the public via SearchLight Denver, the Denver Office of the Clerk and Recorder's campaign finance database. The public can also see how those campaign funds were spent: https://www.denvergov.org/SearchLightDenver

Additional information about the Fund, including contribution limits by office, campaign qualification status and other campaign finance information can be found at: https://www.denvergov.org/campaignfinance

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