news-record.com

The North Carolina Campaign Finance Manual is about an inch thick and dense with rules and regulations.

With all those things to remember – and all those campaign finance forms to fill out – its no wonder candidates and their treasurers sometimes slip up.

And goof they do. Most of the errors are minor mistakes, like adding wrong or leaving an line blank.

One of the most frequent errors is accepting a single contribution from more than one person.

The state caps contributions from individuals. So you’ve got to give to candidates as an individual.

That means no contributions from a husband and wife.

And so far this year, a handful City Council candidates are guilty of violating this rule. That includes veteran campaigners Sandra Anderson Groat, Robbie Perkins and Marikay Abuzuaiter and newcomers Daron Sellars, Donnell “D.J.” Hardy.

Brenda Wallace from the county election board, who is tasked with reviewing the candidate reports and getting candidates to correct the problems, said its one of the most common errors, probably because people donate to campaigns with joint checking accounts.

Let this be a lesson to candidates – and contributors.