The first thing I noticed was that #CrookedHillary and #LyingTed are having issues with donations over $2000. After investigating the records further, it appears the issue wasn't malice as much as data being data. Whenever a donor exceeded the $2700 donation limit, the FEC data contained either a corresponding adjustment record or a memo stating the donation was refunded. These refunds (and all other refunds, for that matter) were handled inconsistently, which skewed the totals. Satisfied democracy wan't being threatened this way, I moved on to the second item.

Every major candidate showed huge discrepancies in donations of $200 or less, with Sanders far and away the biggest culprit. This puzzled me, but eventually I realized the answer to the $27 question: campaign donations of less than $50 can be donated anonymously as per FEC rules. This explains why the larger donation brackets matched so closely while the smaller donations that Sanders likes to tout so much showed wild variations. I was also surprised to find that after combining these undisclosed totals with super-PAC money for both candidates, the total estimated value of "undisclosed" donations was neck and neck, with Hillary at $144,386,841.42 and Bernie at $131,371,912.72. Who would have guessed the champion of transparency was just as bent out of shape (#BentBernie!?) as the rest of the candidates?!

Just Kidding

Okay, okay, I'll admit I'm being bad right now. I know the chief complaint of Sanders supporters is undisclosed special interest money rather than small, anonymous donations. Also, an accurate picture of campaign financing data can't be drawn via a simple sum function. There needs to be additional filter logic and maybe an ETL process or two applied to the data to report the correct values, and this Questionably Qualified Data Scientist has yet to complete these changes. Despite the obvious flaws in my current reporting techniques, it is clear that despite making campaign finance information available to the public, there are avenues besides super-PACs to obfuscate donations made to presidential candidates. With a bit of coordination, a group could enlist a large number of people to donate small amounts to a single campaign without creating any records. In the war against super-PACs, "we the people" have become the worst super-PAC of all!

Flippancy aside, even the staunchest Sanders hater has to admit what he accomplished is pretty incredible. Nobody expected a Socialist running on a Democratic platform to raise over $200,000,000 in a legitimate attempt at the presidency. Unfortunately for #BernieBros everywhere, their hopes of a socialist revolution in 2016 are coming to an end. I expect the Sanders legacy to live on when every future campaign tries to tap into that sweet, sweet internet money the way he did. I have no doubt we will see more grass-roots candidates appear in future elections, inspiring people to adjust their food budget to donate to their cause.

* FEC extract summary values were calculated by summing the donation totals of the various donation bracket totals provided by the FEC's web tool. These values may differ from other campaign totals.

** The author of this article is self-disclosing the fact that he has donated $0.00 dollars to a presidential campaign this election cycle. Although it is entirely possible he donated anywhere from $0 - $49.99 and just won't tell anybody, we will probably never know.