According to reporting from the Dallas Morning News, last month when the Beto O’Rourke campaign submitted their routine campaign finance report to the Texas Ethics Commission, the file size was so large it actually crashed their servers.
Now, the Texas Ethics Commission is requesting $756,000 to upgrade their dated equipment. They’re warning that their servers will likely crash again in October, when reports are due again.
The Texas Ethics Commission plays a vital role in tracking the fundraising and spending of political candidates; if their servers go down again, that information cannot be retrieved by any member of the public, eliminating what little public trust remains.
For any Texan who has visited a state government website, it’s quite obvious that the state government has long neglected their digital presence. Most state websites haven’t been redesigned since the early 2000’s, making them difficult to navigate and interact with.
This server crash is just another example in a long list of state services that have long been neglected by Texas Republicans.
Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons
Ben brings over four years of experience as a political communications manager and graphic designer to Texas Signal, where he serves as our Social Media Manager and does everything from designing graphics and posting on social media, to writing a column about current events. Ben was the Social Media Director for College Democrats of America during the historic 2018 midterms when Democrats swept the House of Representatives. Ben was a first-generation university student and graduated from Texas State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration.
