Groups say companies may violate NY campaign giving limits

"There are instances of treasurer error, and clearly the campaign finance unit is actively reviewing these documents," Brehm said. "They are looking at corporations that have made over contributions, they have hired three individuals to work as auditors to do this kind of work."

The groups releasing the report argue that the data has been computerized for the Board of Elections and they have the tools to distinguish companies that broke the law from those that legally contributed more through various loopholes.

"In politics, unless someone enforces the law aggressively, people will do what they feel like they want to do," said Blair Horner, a spokesman for the New York Public Interest Research Group. "At the state Board of Elections, they're not aggressively enforcing that."

The report was jointly released by NYPIRG, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause New York and the Citizens Union of the City of New York.

The groups argue the state's weak campaign finance law should be updated to either say corporations can't donate to politicians except through political action committees -to match federal law -or close the loophole that allows multiple subsidiaries of the same company to make contributions counted separately from each other.