You don’t have to be a Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders fan to be fed up with politics as usual. Heck, you don’t even have to go outside New Hampshire.

Sure, the presidential race draws most of the attention this time of year, but you need look no further than the upcoming state elections to see examples of elected officials putting politics and political parties ahead of voter interests.

Candidates for governor have been sending out emails – some of them for months – begging for money in anticipation of the filing period that starts today and ends June 10.

As The Associated Press recently reported, candidates are trying to take advantage of a system that allows them to take in contributions as high as $5,000 from individuals and businesses before a candidate officially files. After they file, though, the size of the donations they can accept shrinks to $1,000 per donor for the primary and general elections.

Three Democrats and four Republicans are vying to replace outgoing Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate: The Democrats are Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, former Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand and businessman Mark Connolly; Republicans are Executive Councilor Chris Sununu, state Sen. Jeanie Forrester, Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas and state Rep. Frank Edelblut, of Wilton.

You can bet the farm that every one of them will file on or about the last day so as to keep that window on the bigger donations open as long as possible.

Now, this being the 21st century and all, you might think the public would be able to get a look-see at who is bankrolling which candidate in something close to real time.

If you thought that, you’d be wrong. In fact, as things stand now the public won’t get a look at most candidates’ campaign finance statements until late August, just three weeks before our state holds its primary on Sept. 13, though Van Ostern, to his credit, has promised to release his in June and challenged the others to follow suit.

They should.

Keeping the public in the dark for that long when the technology exists to make donor information available almost immediately is inexcusable, but there’s something you can do about it if you vote.

You can start by demanding that those who make up the House and Senate change the system, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re Republicans or Democrats. Both parties are party to this insult to transparency.

Nashua has 27 seats in the New Hampshire House and is represented by two members of the state Senate, Bette Lasky and Kevin Avard. Hudson and Pelham each have 11 seats in the House and one in the Senate, occupied by either Sharon Carson or Chuck Morse. Milford, Amherst and Mont Vernon are each represented by four representatives in the House and one senator, either Gary Daniels or Andy Sanborn. Merrimack has eight representatives and one senator, Daniels, while Windham has four House representatives and one senator, Regina Birdsell.

That’s a lot of political firepower.

So when candidates seeking election or re-election to any state office ask for your vote, ask them in return whether they support changing the law to require candidates for governor, Executive Council or the state Senate to (1) file campaign finance documents electronically and (2) disclose the source of their donations as soon as they are made.

Because anything else is just business as usual.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The online version of this article was updated to reflect the fact that Colin Van Ostern has said he plans to release campaign finance information in June.

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