What's the price of democracy?

In Roanoke this year, so far it's about $116,000.

That's the total amount of money -- in 154 different donations -- pumped into 10 different campaigns for Roanoke City Council and mayor as of April 28.

Go online to the DataSphere (www.roanoke.com/datasphere) right now, and you can see where every dollar came from, and to whom it went. Plus, the results are mapped, so you can see where donors live.

The data are also there for the hotly contested 2006 election, which ultimately settled Victory Stadium's fate. The data are public record, collected by The Roanoke Times and made into an electronic database by the Virginia Public Access Project (www.vpap.org).

Donors financing campaigns are an integral part of the political process.

Assessing who is bankrolling elections ought to be just as integral a part.

Money talks. And in politics, it talks in more ways than one.

Not only does it potentially buy influence, as the cliche suggests, but look at where the money comes from, and where it goes, and it'll also speak to you in a different way.

It'll tell you who has something at stake in the election, who's worried, who has the support of whom and who might expect something in return once a candidate takes the oath.

You hear about special interest groups in the federal election process. They're here at the local level, too.

Check out the Business Leadership Fund, the political action committee of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, which heavily bankrolled the independent "For the City" ticket that swept into office in 2006.

This year, they're putting most of their money behind Mayor Nelson Harris and newcomer council candidate Court Rosen.

You can look at individual donors, too.

J. Granger Macfarlane, a former state senator who ran unsuccessfully for Roanoke City Council in 2006, is putting his money behind independent David Bowers for mayor, and independent council candidates Brian Wishneff and Valerie Garner.

It helps to know who owns what, too. You can see that Macfarlane not only gave as an individual, but his company, Eastern Motor Inns, also gave to the same three candidates.

Then there are donors such as real estate executive Ed Hall, who seemingly hedged his bets with donations to Wishneff, Harris and Rosen.

That's about the who. Don't forget the where.

Thanks to the mapping function of this database, you can see where, geographically speaking, the money is coming from.

You don't have to play with the data long to see the vast majority of individual donations to these campaigns come from the well-heeled parts of the city, where residents have enough to be able to spare a few hundred dollars to give to a candidate they favor.

In lower-income parts of town, well, residents there don't have the money to spare. It's a stark reminder that democracy and our political process, while it gives everybody the same single vote, doesn't necessarily give everyone equal influence.

It raises the age-old question of who gets to really sway government -- and who is relegated to disenfranchisement. Where does power really reside?

It raises those questions.

Answering them is a different and far more complicated matter.

Submissions needed

If you run a nonprofit or other organization that needs help in the form of volunteers or certain kinds of donations, or you lead a support group, you might be wondering how to get the word out now that The Roanoke Times is no longer publishing its Neighbors sections.

The answer is online.

Go to www.roanoke.com/lists/ to find an online submission form for both support groups and how-to-help listings.

Your submission will be added to a searchable database available to all our readers online.