FECTOOL is copyrighted by me, Paul J Milligan, March 2008. Please do not redistribute in whole or in part, or alter the distribution package in any way. The program, and use thereof, is free, and the database is in an open format for reuse by anyone in any way desired, as long as credit is given to Paul Milligan for having created same.
You will need a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768, and ~ 2 gig of free disk ( 1.5 is probably OK )
FECTOOL uses only free public data from http://www.fec.gov. The data is not adulterated or edited in any way by me. This is a strictly non-partisan effort on my part. I hope that nothing in this program will give any indication of my personal political inclinations, whatever they may be.
I found that the available web tools, while admirable and laudable, were not sufficient for my purposes. I needed ALL the raw data, and the ability to frame it, query it, summarize it, detail it, etc, in any way that occurred to me, quickly and without limit or constraint.
So, I downloaded the data from the FEC's website. It's all public record, and free. At first, I threw it into my MS-SQL Server / IIS Web Server box with DTS etc, but then I decided that it would be most in keeping with the idea of 'public disclosure' and 'public access' to do it in a way that ANYONE could use it. So, I moved it to an Access ( MDB ) style database, a common interface and easily used by just about anyone with computer skills.
The overhead of converting from COBOL-style flat files to database took the usual course - examining the files and associated documentation, writing some interfaces and T-SQL work for imports, etc, etc, as would be expected. This overhead might be a barrier for some computer folk in terms of the time and effort ( not the difficulty - it's not difficult stuff, just routine time consuming and boring work ), so I choose to leave the database un-encrypted and un-passworded, to facilitate use by anyone who wants to use it'.