Having downloaded the filings of 12 candidates* for citywide office, it is still obvious that the current campaign finance system fails in its goal of making small donations important.

Under current rules, the first $175 donated from any single donor is eligible for matching funds, while anything above that is not, so it stands to reason that $175 is the break point between "small" and "large" donations. According to data available from the Campaign Finance Board website, these candidates have raised a total of $21,659,521. As of the January filings, over 97.8% of the $21 million-plus is in the form of donations greater than $175.

Candidates whose "large donation" numbers are well below the average are generally those you would expect -- those who haven't raised that much money. The four with the lowest percentages of large donations are the same four lowest fundraisers -- in the same order! Similarly, the candidate with the highest percentage of large donations is also the largest fundraiser.

It's clear, both from the amount of money raised and the way it is being raised, that we need a new system. Regular readers know my view (can you say, "Intro 803"?) on how to fix things.

* The 12 candidates are: For Mayor -- Tony Avella, William Thompson, Anthony Weiner (John Catsimatidis isn't included, because he has two donors, himself and his wife; Michael Bloomberg hasn't filed, but even if he did he wouldn't be included because he has only 1 donor); for Comptroller -- Adolfo Carrion, Melinda Katz, David Weprin, David Yassky (Carrion is included here because he hasn't withdrawn and hasn't returned donations too large for a candidate for Borough President to accept); for Public Advocate -- Bill de Blasio, Eric Gioia, John Liu, Norman Siegel, Alex Zablocki (Zablocki has raised a little over $5,000, and has declared for Public Advocate; if his numbers were ignored it would make no difference to at least five decimal places).