Specifications include, but are not limited to: The State is seeking a LDS that will facilitate the responsibility of the SOS for administration and public presentation of lobbying-related disclosures for lobbyists, lobbyist employers, and lobbying firms in Vermont. The primary features of the LDS will include: • The ability for covered entities (lobbyists, lobbyist employers, and lobbying firms) to register in the lobbying system through an online portal when they meet the applicable thresholds of expenditures in any given legislative biennium. • The ability for covered entities (lobbyists, lobbyist employers, and lobbying firms) that have registered in the lobbying system to file, through their unique account in the same online portal, the periodic disclosures of compensation paid, expenditures made, and gifts given by the entity during a given disclosure period. • A robust, public facing search portal which will allow members of the public to search for and review registration and disclosure data filed by the covered entities. Searches should enable the public user to display data in as many ways as that data can be reasonably organized, such as by entity, by date, by amount, by reporting period, by biennium, etc. The administrative users of the system will be the Elections Division staff at the SOS office. The endpoint users will be the covered entities – lobbyists, lobbyist employers, and lobbying firms that have reached the statutory thresholds for registration and disclosure of their lobbying related expenses. The proposed solution should be simple to understand and easy-to-use for administrative users and end users alike, automating processes wherever possible, producing searchable, sortable, exportable data where necessary. The system should be secure, employing necessary cyber-security features including twofactor authentication for admin users and meet industry accepted general standards for cyber security defenses. All public facing features of the system should have simple, straightforward user interfaces providing the necessary access to data by the public empowering the use of that data by the public for the many purposes it may be sought. The system should be able to function on current versions of all major browser types and hardware such as desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. In general, the State seeks a state-of-the-art, comprehensive, robust LDS to support the State’s administration of elections in the coming years.
