U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign has a door hanger that volunteers put on doors when they find nobody home. It features a photo of Sanders, verbiage railing against jobs going to China, cuts in education and veterans benefits and the privatization of Social Security. It also has a coupon offering a chance to contribute to Sanders’ campaign.

In between the verbiage and the coupon is the requisite disclaimer: “Paid for by Sanders for Senate, P.O. Box 391, Burlington, VT 05402.” There’s just one thing missing. The Federal Election Commission requires that disclaimer to be boxed.

Here are the FEC’s rules on that:
“On printed materials, the disclaimer notice must appear within a printed box set apart from the other contents in the communication. The print must be of a sufficient type-size to be clearly readable by the recipient of the communication, and the print must have a reasonable degree of color contrast between the background and the printed statement.

See the rule here: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/notices.shtml.


Tim Lennon, campaign manager for Sanders’ opponent, Republican Rich Tarrant, brought the indiscretion to our attention. He said he's not sure whether he will file a complaint about it to the FEC - that depends on the Sanders campaign's reaction.

Sanders spokesman Paul Hortenstine said the door hangers have been out about a month and he didn’t know how many more there were or whether they would continue to be used. “Is it a big deal? No,” Hortenstine said.

Consequences for not boxing one's disclaimer could ultimately mean a civil fine, but that would depend on the circumstances, according to the FEC. The agency would take into consideration how visible the disclaimer is, how pervasively the item was used and how the error happened. First, though, someone would have to file a complaint.

In this case, if the Tarrant campaign files a complaint, the Sanders campaign might be close on its heels with complaints about the unauthorized use of video in Web ads, for starters.

For now, how about having a volunteer take a fine-point pen to those door hangers and putting a box around that disclaimer?

- Terri Hallenbeck