Click Button, File Form
February 17, 2012 - by
A Republican filed to run for State House and no sooner had he filed than he was told he had to fill out a second form called a Financial Disclosure Report – so he went to the State Ethics Commission’s website and found the form then ran head on into a bureaucratic maze.
When he clicked on the form up popped a message that said to stop right there: That he didn’t have a State User ID and a Secret Password. To get an ID he had to go to a completely different government department – then he returned to the Ethics Commission website, entered his Secret Password, filled out the form and looked around for a button that said, Click Here to File Report.
But it wasn’t there. There was no button.
Instead he had to file the report manually with his local Board of Elections – so he called the local Board which promptly told him, Don’t send it to us – send it to the State Elections Board in Raleigh. So, next, he called the State Board which said, Don’t send it to us – send it to your Local Board.
Curious, he asked, ‘What does the local board do with the form once they get it?’
‘They stamp it and send it to us.’
‘And what do you do with it?’
‘We send it on to the Ethics Commission.’
He hung up, sat back, and thought: The Local Board sends it to the State Board which sends it to the Ethics Commission which already has an electronic copy – that form just provided work for bureaucrats in three different government departments when all they needed was one ‘Click Button.’
Click Button, File Form
February 17, 2012/
A Republican filed to run for State House and no sooner had he filed than he was told he had to fill out a second form called a Financial Disclosure Report – so he went to the State Ethics Commission’s website and found the form then ran head on into a bureaucratic maze.
When he clicked on the form up popped a message that said to stop right there: That he didn’t have a State User ID and a Secret Password. To get an ID he had to go to a completely different government department – then he returned to the Ethics Commission website, entered his Secret Password, filled out the form and looked around for a button that said, Click Here to File Report.
But it wasn’t there. There was no button.
Instead he had to file the report manually with his local Board of Elections – so he called the local Board which promptly told him, Don’t send it to us – send it to the State Elections Board in Raleigh. So, next, he called the State Board which said, Don’t send it to us – send it to your Local Board.
Curious, he asked, ‘What does the local board do with the form once they get it?’
‘They stamp it and send it to us.’
‘And what do you do with it?’
‘We send it on to the Ethics Commission.’
He hung up, sat back, and thought: The Local Board sends it to the State Board which sends it to the Ethics Commission which already has an electronic copy – that form just provided work for bureaucrats in three different government departments when all they needed was one ‘Click Button.’