This month, we are excited to kick off external stakeholder user testing. This round of testing comes as the project reaches a major milestone – completion of development for Program Increments 1 and 2, representing approximately 72% of the CAL-ACCESS Replacement System (CARS) functionality.  

The entire CARS project team looks forward to receiving feedback from the external stakeholder testers. A special thank you to the 22 individuals who volunteered their time and expertise for this effort. Your feedback is extremely valuable to us

The external stakeholders participating in testing will conduct exploratory testing and share their feedback. The purpose of exploratory testing is to enable users to apply real-world scenarios to evaluate and validate the system’s functionality. This is different from traditional scripted testing, which relies on predefined scenarios.  

External stakeholder testers will indicate whether the system meets their needs and expectations. The testable functions are shown in the tables below. Future testing sessions will examine functionality currently being developed, which will be released as the project moves closer to the go-live date.  

Participating external stakeholder testers will receive training on the system, be given guidance on how to test, and will be paired with a mentor/business expert from the Secretary of State Political Reform Division (PRD). Mentors will answer questions and provide guidance and support throughout the testing process. 

The three tables below indicate (with an X) the CARS functions that are available for external stakeholders to test: 

The CARS functions shown in the tables above were delivered through the project’s Program Increments 1 and 2 development process. Program Increment 1 was accepted in early February, and internal testing for Program Increment 2 is underway.  

The CARS Project welcomes our stakeholder testers and is grateful for their time and effort in helping us make CARS a reality. 

• CARS Monthly External Stakeholder Meetings – These meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month to inform stakeholders of the progress of the CARS project, answer questions, and demonstrate recently completed functionality. Our March meeting is scheduled for 3/11/2026, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.  

• Program Increment 2A – The first phase of this Program Increment covers financial transactions and system administration features. Development and system testing of the inventory of features are complete and user acceptance testing is underway.  

• Program Increment 2B – This phase includes functionality for filer disclosure reporting, system administration features, and work on the CARS Filer Portal. Development and system testing for these functions are in process, as is data conversion for legacy data. User acceptance testing is due to be completed on 3/6/2026.  

• Program Increment 3 – Development for Program Increment 3 began last November and covers various fees and fines, portals and functionality affecting PRD staff, additional user account management features, correspondence, report generation, and online help. 

• Program Increment 4 – Development for the last program increment kicked off in early March and includes features for the CARS public portal, searching and reporting out data, and managing reports.  

• Third-Party Software Vendors – The development team finished development and system testing of the application program interfaces for uploading data contained in 32 types of filings. 
  
  The project team meets with the third-party software vendors twice monthly, on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. The next meetings are scheduled for 3/10/2026 and 3/24/2026. 

• External Stakeholder User Testing – Testing is scheduled to begin on 3/23/2026 and conclude in early April. 

Examples of authorized officers for different entities include:  

• Slate mailer organization filings can be attested by the treasurer, assistant treasurer, or officer. 
• Recipient committee filings can be attested to by their treasurer, assistant treasurer, and in some cases, a state measure proponent. 
• Lobbying firms, employers, and coalitions can have their filings attested by a responsible officer. 

The ability to complete a filing attestation, whether for a registration or disclosure, depends on the role the registered user has with the filing entity.  

Note that candidates and lobbyists can attest to their own filings. Also, for filings submitted through third- party software vendors, the attestation process is handled by the vendors.