Counting how Primary Source is Webby worthy

Introduction

What could be better than being named one of the world’s top five political blogs for 2013?

Being named No. 1.

The Center for Public Integrity’s Primary Source blog is currently in the running for this honor after the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences selected it as finalist for a Webby Award.

In short, we’re thrilled: 2013 was Primary Source’s inaugural year — a year that saw more than 150,000 unique visitors to the blog and more than 250 items published.

It’d be quite the honor to top off our first year with a Webby.

There are two components to the Webby Awards. The first are prizes awarded by contest judges. The second are prizes determined by popular vote — and that’s where you come in.

Voting ends Thursday, April 24, and we’d be elated to receive your support among a field of worthy candidates. Winners will be announced April 29.

Please click here to vote for Primary Source in the “People’s Voice” contest.

In the meantime, here are a few figures Primary Source revealed that we hope will help you count the ways our blog is worthy of your vote:

$310 million: Value of assets held by four foundations run by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch

$122 million: Amount spent in 2012 by the Koch brothers’ main politically active nonprofit, Americans for Prosperity

$36 million: Amount spent in 2012 by the League of Conservation Voters

$8.4 million: Amount of undisclosed “dark money” a pro-Barack Obama nonprofit accepted during 2012, despite Obama’s stated commitment to transparency

$2.5 million: Amount donated by Microsoft to a “small business” technology trade group, which account for a substantial portion of the group’s budget

$570,000: Compensation collected by former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman for work at a pair of politically active nonprofits over a three-year period

$12,000: Amount spent on an 11th-hour blitz in a Missouri House race by a super PAC that wasn’t required to disclose its donors until after Election Day

$4,600: Amount of money the Obama campaign pocketed from convicted Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford — and refused to give back

$1,000: Amount by which GOP businessman Shaun McCutcheon exceeded the aggregate limit on giving to political parties in 2012

$1,000: Amount of money drug store chain CVS donated to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s NERD Fund, which doesn’t disclose donors

500: Number of companies that a trio of trade groups urged to not disclose more information about their political activities

60: Percentage of its 2012 receipts that FreedomWorks, a tea-party aligned “grassroots service center,” received from donors who each gave at least $1 million

40: Minimum percentage of the first $1.25 million raised by super PAC Ready for Hillary that came from New Yorkers and Californians

23: Number of campaign bundlers nominated in 2013 by Obama to be ambassadors

21: Number of current U.S. senators who voluntarily e-filed copies of their campaign finance reports

9: Number of senators who transferred leadership PAC funds to a politically active nonprofit that provided air cover for one of their colleagues during 2013’s contentious gun control debate

7: Number of House Democrats who appeared in an online video praising a supportive super PAC

6: Minimum number of U.S. Supreme Court justices who are millionaires

4: Number of FEC employees on the job during October’s government shutdown — right as Chinese hackers successfully attacked the agency

1: Number of times the American League of Lobbyists changed its name last year

0: Number of commissioners serving on the federal Election Assistance Commission