The City of Oakland requires that candidates for public office file documents indicating who has given them funds for their campaign. This information can be valuble in providing transparency and helping citizens understand the various influence at work in the city. The campaign finance information is public record, and paper copies can be purchased from city hall. But it is very difficult to do any analysis unless the data is released electronically in an open format. How can we help make this happen? Is it just a matter of getting approval to release the data? (Presumeably it was tabulated somewhere to determine if candidates exceeded spending limits) San Francisco hires an outside company to do the data collection and managment, but I imagine that funds are tight in oakland. Do we need to build a web system for candidates to file the information in electronic form instead of paper documents?