Rhode Island’s antiquated campaign finance software system is poised for a refresh under a $140,000, one-year contract approved by the Board of Elections Tuesday.
The panel’s unanimous vote sets in motion the long-awaited upgrade to the electronic system used to report and share information about campaign donations and spending.
Rhode Island’s campaign finance software hasn’t been updated since its 2002 debut. The need to bring it into the modern era was never in dispute: The outdated system can’t accommodate certain, state-mandated reports, including disclosure of independent expenditures and donations by political action committees and affidavits from vendors awarded high-dollar state contracts. And, it risks major disruptions when problems arise — most of the software engineers who designed the legacy system have retired, or are approaching retirement age.
But the extra money needed to pay for the refresh proved a problem, initially. The Rhode Island Board of Elections asked for an extra $250,000 in its fiscal 2026 budget request for software upgrades. Gov. Dan McKee did not include any of that money in his budget proposal.
But an unexpected $500,000 surplus in the elections agency’s current year budget solved the funding problem. The revised fiscal 2026 budget approved by the Rhode Island House Tuesday repurposes the fiscal 2025 surplus to the upcoming year, designating the money for the campaign finance software upgrade and new electronic poll books.
Pending approval by the state Department of Administration and Division of Purchasing, Florida-based software vendor Civix will begin the technical side of the software upgrade in July, with plans to start training candidates and campaign committees in January, Miguel Nunez, elections board director, said during the meeting. The proposed timeline ensures the upgraded software will be ready to use for the 2026 election cycle.
Once the switch to the new system occurs, historic data, from 2002 to 2022, will be archived as PDFs, available on the elections board website for download as searchable CSV files, Ric Thornton, campaign finance director told the board Tuesday.
“It’s a very robust feature that will provide both internal users at the agency and the public with the information they’re seeking on a historical basis,” Thornton said.
Some technology experts were critical of the board’s decision not to incorporate all of its existing campaign finance information into the new system. But Thornton told the board on Tuesday that transferring 23 years of data would cost $300,000 more, and take an extra six months — risking inability to complete the transition and candidate training for the 2026 election cycle.
A copy of the contract was not immediately available.
A previous work order submitted to the board by Civix projects the cost for software upgrades and ongoing maintenance to be $815,000 over the next five years. By comparison, it would cost $377,000 over the next five years to maintain the existing system.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
