Campaign financing laws are simply not strict enough. We’ve long complained that despite laws that require candidates to disclose campaign contributions publicly, the spirit of the law can be easily skirted.

Last week, a routine examination of campaign finance reports for mayoral candidates and police chief candidates for the City of Vidalia revealed errors.

Two candidates had accepted donations of more than state law allows in such races. Apparently, the error is fairly common and remedying it is simply a matter of paying back the funds. Clearly if the two candidates had intentionally sought to break the laws, they simply wouldn’t have reported the donations in the first place.

Besides, one of them said, the solution is just to pay the excess campaign donation back and resubmit it in another person in their family’s name. For example, if the cap is $2,500, a husband can give $1,000, his wife $1,000 and their adult child $500, and no rules are broken.

Other concerns come when someone donates in-kind services — use of something they own, for example, such as room for a campaign rally.

The spirit of the law is intended to greatly limit the wealthiest contributors from unduly helping to sway a race.

On the national level, funds from political action committees allow such anonymous donors to pump millions and millions of dollars into campaigns.

Until our nation figures out how to drastically curtail the rampant spending that occurs in political races — from the run for The White House to the run for city hall — faith in the political system is difficult to have.