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Q&A

Molillo on campaign non-responsiveness and audit delays

New York City Council · Jun 22, 2026 · starts 1:01:10 · 1 min 41 sec

Molillo highlights that campaigns frequently fail to respond to initial document requests and draft audit reports, requiring extensive rework. She notes the CFB cannot impose real-time penalties for non-responsiveness and suggests amending the act to allow penalties to incentivize timely responses.

Amanda Molillo

I want to take this opportunity to note one more difficulty in the process on our end, which is that it is not uncommon for campaigns for candidates to not respond to the initial document request.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We wholeheartedly share your concerns about the ways that AI technology could be used to spread false information to intentionally mislead or deceive voters about council members and other city candidates and officeholders.

Paul Seamus Ryan

At the Campaign Finance Board, we have placed a priority on learning about artificial intelligence.

Amanda Molillo

And that dramatically increases the amount of work our auditors need to do to produce a draft audit report without effective documentation.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We have a unique perspective on this topic rooted in our dual mandate to serve candidates and voters.

Amanda Molillo

It is also...

Paul Seamus Ryan

We sympathize with the perspective of both.

Amanda Molillo

Quite common, unfortunately, for campaigns not to respond to the draft audit report, which in turn makes it much more difficult for our auditors, much more time intensive,

Paul Seamus Ryan

We wholeheartedly share your concerns about the ways that AI technology could be used to spread false information to intentionally mislead or deceive voters about council members and other city candidates and officeholders.

Amanda Molillo

to produce the draft final audit report that they then refer to the legal team to decide whether or not this matter goes to enforcement for violations or instead gets closed out.

Paul Seamus Ryan

At the Campaign Finance Board, we have placed a priority on learning about artificial intelligence.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We have a unique perspective on this topic rooted in our dual mandate to serve candidates and voters.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We sympathize with the perspective of both.

Amanda Molillo

And we have no ability as an agency, the board has no ability to impose a penalty on unresponsiveness in real time.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We wholeheartedly share your concerns about the ways that AI technology could be used to spread false information to intentionally mislead or deceive voters about council members and other city candidates and officeholders.

Amanda Molillo

When a campaign doesn't respond to the IDR, the initial document request, when a campaign doesn't respond to the draft audit report, to the extent they get penalized for that, it comes at the end of the road.

Paul Seamus Ryan

At the Campaign Finance Board, we have placed a priority on learning about artificial intelligence.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We have a unique perspective on this topic rooted in our dual mandate to serve candidates and voters.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We sympathize with the perspective of both.

Amanda Molillo

And oftentimes campaigns then do show up for the hearing before the board and they say, yeah, yeah, we know we didn't respond to the IDR or to the DAR, but we do have these receipts.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We wholeheartedly share your concerns about the ways that AI technology could be used to spread false information to intentionally mislead or deceive voters about council members and other city candidates and officeholders.

Amanda Molillo

Here they are.

Paul Seamus Ryan

At the Campaign Finance Board, we have placed a priority on learning about artificial intelligence.

Amanda Molillo

That requires both our legal team and our audit team to redo the audit and reconsider the matter for enforcement.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We have a unique perspective on this topic rooted in our dual mandate to serve candidates and voters.

Amanda Molillo

It is a lot of rework, which is a form of waste in our system that we definitely need to cut down on in order to speed up our audits overall.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We sympathize with the perspective of both.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We wholeheartedly share your concerns about the ways that AI technology could be used to spread false information to intentionally mislead or deceive voters about council members and other city candidates and officeholders.

Amanda Molillo

So candidate cooperation as well as perhaps...

Amanda Molillo

An ability, an amendment to the act that will allow us to impose some penalties in real time to better incentivize responses to the IDR and to the DAR and to the FAR.

Paul Seamus Ryan

At the Campaign Finance Board, we have placed a priority on learning about artificial intelligence.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We have a unique perspective on this topic rooted in our dual mandate to serve candidates and voters.

Paul Seamus Ryan

We sympathize with the perspective of both.