On the Records: Ready, Set, File

Today is the deadline for candidates in state races to file reports listing their donations and expenditures from July 1 to December 31.

We already got a hint about the candidates in the governor's race, after Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Bill White released their totals earlier this week.

Today's filings, which must be submitted to the Texas Ethics Commission by midnight, will offer more details. Specifically, we'll be looking at the names of the candidates' donors, the size of the donations and whether any of these details tell us more about the respective races. Then, of course, we get to check out their spending.

We have to wait, though. 

The commission posts data from the filings online, but the agency first must process the reports as they come in throughout the day and night. Donors' street addresses are redacted to comply with state law, for example. Employees there then must migrate the data to the public servers, so it could be a day or two before we can begin slicing and dicing. (We'll update our search apps as soon as we can). 

We're hopeful that the big campaigns, and perhaps some down the ballot, will send us copies of their filings. 

Follow @TribData on Twitter for updates.