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 October 2025
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CARS Scrum Team 3 – Third-Party Software Vendor APIs
Scrum Team 3 is hard at work developing the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that serve our community of Third-Party Software Vendors, who help their clients file campaign and lobbying information with the Secretary of State (SOS).
Team 3 – Team Member Spotlight
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David Walker, Product Owner, previously worked for the Employment Development Department, graduated from Sierra College, and joined the Political Reform Division (PRD) in 2015. He is an associate governmental program analyst focused on ballot-measure contribution tracking and technical/data support. He lives on a small farm with chickens, goats, alpacas, and a pig, and enjoys time in nature. |
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Dinesh Kumar, Scrum Master for Teams 3 & 4, leads sprint planning, daily standup meetings, and retrospectives, skillfully serving as the bridge between stakeholders and development teams, ensuring work is executed in alignment with goals and constantly evolving through continuous improvement. |
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Christopher Hatridge, API Subject Matter Expert, joined SOS and the Political Reform Division as a student assistant over four years ago. He has worked in the Lobbying Unit for four years and recently took a new role in the Data Support Unit. |
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Brian Souza has been with the SOS Information Technology Division (ITD) for four years and worked on the Election Night Reporting team before joining CARS as the API Engineer. He is a proud Sac State Alumni and has a M.S. from University of San Diego. |
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Joseph Chang, Principal Solutions Architect for CARS. Joined SOS after working at Kratos Defense Security Solutions, helping develop their enterprise network management software, NeuralStar, used by Homeland Security agencies, defense companies and other companies such as Microsoft. Outside of work, Joseph enjoys unique hobbies such as collecting air guitars. |
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Sajal Pradhan, Principal Data Architect for CARS, specializes in enterprise solution architecture, the data lifecycle, artificial intelligence, and web accessibility. Sajal leads teams in developing innovative solutions and ensuring seamless data transitions. Passionate about Artificial Intelligence and inclusive design, he drives business transformation while making solutions both effective, robust and accessible. |
Team 3 – Accomplishments
The team is making enormous progress with developing the APIs to be used by our Third-Party Software Vendor community. To date, much of the key functionality has been delivered for System Test as well as the recently concluded proof-of-concept testing phase with participating vendors.
To date, Team 3 and Prime Vendor developers have finalized 18 of the 32 APIs for the form data that is required when CARS goes live. API endpoints include seven essential forms for campaign filers and 11 forms for lobbying filers that cover registration, activity reporting, amendments, and renewals, as well as forms for establishing major donors, independent expenditures, and $5,000 filers. APIs facilitate uploading attestations, activity transactions, linkages, and withdrawals/terminations.
The CARS Project is happy to report that our Third-Party Software Vendor community has been participating in our twice-monthly meetings. We would like to thank the vendors who have contributed their time and efforts to working with us on proof-of-concept testing of the new APIs.
The CARS Project and Team 3 are excited to implement the new CARS APIs.
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CARS Monthly External Stakeholder Meetings – This series of meetings occurs on the second Wednesday of each month to keep stakeholders informed and answer questions about the CARS Project. The next meeting is on 10/8/2025 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. and includes a functionality preview.
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Third-Party Software Vendors – Proof-of-concept testing with Third-Party Software Vendors is now complete. To prepare for certification, vendors are asked to submit names, contact information, and the forms they want to certify by 10/17/2025.
The next phases of preparation are:
Phase 1) October 6 – December 19, 2025: Pre-certification setup in the CARS certification environment
Phase 2) February 23 – June 24, 2026: Integration testing and user acceptance testing using formal test cases
Phase 3) August 10 – October 16, 2026: Administrative certification prior to CARS go-live in November 2026
Our meetings continue – held the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. October meeting dates are 10/14/2025 and 10/28/2025 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
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Program Increment (PI) 1 – Our work on PI 1 has focused on campaign registration and disclosure filing for candidates, slate mailer organizations, recipient committees, and major donors, independent expenditures, E-530 filers, and other business entities. Our teams working on lobbying have automated the filing of data for lobbyist employers and coalitions, lobbying firms, and lobbyists.
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Assembly Bill 808 (Addis) Campaign statements and registrations - This legislation was recently signed by the Governor and amends Political Reform Act (PRA) regulations to require online and electronic filing of campaign reports and registrations. The bill makes terminology changes to better align the PRA with new CARS functionality.
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Further Progress – The Prime Vendor has submitted two major design documents, which have now been formally approved. Program Increment 2 development is also in progress. Teams of PRD subject matter experts and developers are hard at work on automating different business areas including financial transactions, system administration, user account management, and portals for PRD staff, partners, and the public.
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How will CARS handle financial transactions?
Financial transactions play a large role in the new system. CARS enables automated assessment of annual fees, fines and penalties. CARS also automatically generates invoices to which payments can be applied. Credit card payments will be accepted online, and filers can view their invoices and select how payment should be applied.
CARS further enables processing waivers, refund requests, and many other internal accounting activities. CARS then produces financial reports and data for SOS Fiscal’s accounting function.
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The purpose of the CARS Project is to create a new information-driven system, replacing the current forms-driven approach. When it goes live, the public and campaign/lobbying filers will be able to more easily navigate CARS with its customer-centered design.
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What would you like to see included in the next CARS Stakeholder Bulletin issue? Email PRDCARS@SOS.CA.GOV to provide your ideas and feedback.
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The CARS Project Monthly External Stakeholder Meeting Series (MS Teams), PowerPoint Presentations, Q&As, FAQs and additional project information may be found on the CARS Homepage.
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