Sue Lani Madsen: Public Disclosure Commission snafu was a collision of good intentions and bad timing

It was a case of incredibly bad timing and human error, but not a conspiracy. The Washington state Public Disclosure Commission changed its website on Oct. 26 to make it more user-friendly. In the simplification process, the technical team left out two columns of address data in the primary campaign interface.

Out-of-district and out-of-state donors to candidates and ballot initiatives are a common campaign issue. It has been an issue in the race between Tim Benn and Kate Burke in city of Spokane Council District 3.

The email from a frustrated Benn campaign volunteer arrived late Sunday. She could no longer find donor address data on the PDC website, only a list of names and amounts. Had progressive political forces in Olympia reacted to my recent Spokesman-Review column comparing Benn’s and Burke’s donor bases? Flattering, but no. Was the PDC hiding data a week before the election to protect the Democrat? Highly unlikely. Under stress, it’s easy to confuse coincidence with conspiracy.

Real conspiracies are rare, especially ones requiring collusion among many parties. Occam’s razor is a useful tool for discernment, named for William of Ockham, a 14th-century Franciscan scholar. The principle is formally expressed as “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily,” or the principle of simplicity. When faced with multiple explanations for events, pick the one relying on the fewest connections. Use the razor to cut away extraneous information.

In modern terms, it’s the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Hence, tech support’s first question: “Is it plugged in?”

And it turned out there was a simple answer to why data seemed to have disappeared from the PDC website. The PDC has been working over the last year on the Next Generation Data Access project. They’ve integrated each piece of the project into the website as it was ready, to make more records available to the public more quickly.

The new Open Data catalog containing over 5 million records went live last March. It’s designed for expert users and software developers seeking to analyze data into charts and graphs. This being Washington, there has already been interest in developing new apps to market to campaigns and candidates. We’ll be drowning in data analysis by the 2018 elections.

The last piece to roll out was the newly simplified interface for exploring campaigns. PDC staff and the stakeholder team had all reviewed the demo version, but the hardest error to spot when proofreading is what’s not there. James Gutholm, chief information officer for the PDC, said he was “personally embarrassed to have left out something so basic.” It’s being fixed.

Toby Nixon, president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, was one of the stakeholders for the project. When contacted Sunday night, he was surprised to hear about the missing data columns and said it must be a technical oversight. He agreed the timing of the rollout was odd, the change should have been made months before or after the election and not while ballots are out.

Kim Bradford, PDC spokeswoman, said the team did consider those who were accustomed to searching the old database, and the legacy system will be available until Jan. 1. Unfortunately, but not conspiratorially, the link to the legacy system is difficult to find. It needs a tweak.

All the data is still accessible through the Open Data interface at a greater level of detail. Gutholm said the most amazing outcome of the whole project has been the deeper insights people are already gaining into campaigns. Following the money in Washington has never been as transparent.

The campaign explorer interface is designed to address common help desk questions. Bradford encouraged anyone with suggestions or questions to contact the PDC through the website or by phone. “Emails to pdc@pdc.wa.gov do not go into a black hole,” Bradford said. Each comment is cataloged and addressed as improvements are made to the system, like the development of the new interface. To find out about opportunities to be part of a project stakeholder group or to get updates, subscribe to the appropriate email list.

No conspiracy. No collusion. And more opportunities for individual citizens to be their own fact-checkers in 2018. Meanwhile, ballots are due Tuesday.