A handful of U.S. senators have electronically filed their second quarter fund-raising numbers — even though Senate campaign committees remain the only federal political committees not required to do so.

Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) were the only ones to report their fund-raising totals electronically to the Federal Election Commission as of 8 p.m. Friday, an OpenSecrets Blog review of Senate filings indicates.

The lack of electronic filings means that it takes longer for the public to get detailed information about who is funding its federal legislators. Every year, the government is also forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to enter the Senate’s paper records into digital databases, OpenSecrets Blog previously reported.

Legislation requiring senate campaign committees to e-file has failed in the past. The most recent push was by Tester, who in March introduced S. 219, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. The bill is still in committee and has not been voted on yet.

Tester’s bill has received bipartisan support along with the endorsement of the FEC.

Philip Fiermonte, campaign director for Sanders, one of the nine to file electronically, said Sanders’ campaign committee has been filing electronically “for a while.” Fiermonte said he was unaware that electronic filing is optional for senators.

“It’s just a more efficient way,” Fiermonte said.



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