The public financing of elections is all the rage in Raleigh. North Carolina already has two such programs — the Public Campaign Fund for candidates in top judicial races and the Voter-Owned Elections Fund for candidates in three Council of State races.

Now come additional efforts. Of particular note is Gov. Beverly Perdue’s endowment that would fund gubernatorial elections. And the House has shown interest in a bill to establish public financing provisions in municipal elections.

The intentions are essentially honorable. But, in general, public financing is not a particularly good idea. It does not provide the desirable impact assumed by its advocates and has significant downside effects they ignore.

To see why I think this way, let’s look at the three central arguments for the superiority of public financing. The first is that special interests currently control the actions of elected officials through their contributions. Political science research shows, however, that campaign contributions follow behavior. They do not direct it. The contribution is a reward, not an incentive.

This is not a distinction without a difference. Critics of private campaign money might argue that contributions then shape future action — it’s a kind of vicious circle. But we know in North Carolina there are literally thousands of groups and individuals with all types of views that give to candidates.

Elected officials act freely and are often rewarded with a donation for something they would have done anyway. If they wish to change positions, there are always donors out there willing to support them. You can think about it this way: If contributions drove behavior, then why doesn’t big labor give much money to Republicans?

The second argument is that the “obscene” amount of money in campaigns alienates voters. To be sure, with the conspicuous exception of 2008, turnout is generally down. But here again correlation does not mean causation. Political scientists have shown that it is competitive races and appreciable differences in candidates’ political philosophies that drive citizens to the polls.

When people feel the outcome is important and they can make a difference, they vote. If we look across the ballot, moreover, it’s the big-money races that excite voters. By way of illustration, even on a per-voter basis there’s much more money in gubernatorial elections — in 2008 the candidates spent just under $10 a vote — than in municipal ones — in the 2007 Raleigh city council at-large contest, candidates spent approximately a combined $6 for each voter. Turnout in the governor’s race was 70 percent. In the city council race it was 10 percent.

Last, public financing advocates assert their proposals will result in better-informed voters. Here I have some sympathy. At the municipal level and even in some state legislative races, voters just don’t have enough information to make enlightened choices. A voter needs to know something about the distance between his preferences and those of the candidates to make a truly learned choice.

But further up the ballot public money is certainly not needed. In fact, a purely publicly financed gubernatorial election is likely to provide us with less information. Perdue thinks the endowment could provide about $15 million to $20 million for gubernatorial candidates in the future. That’s about how much she alone spent to win her party’s nomination and the general election.

So public financing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Worse, it can cause harm. I don’t need to tell you about the First Amendment implications of restricting private donations. What’s more, efforts to push private dollars out of the formal system will greatly expand an existing opaque alternative campaign in which voters find it difficult to hold candidates accountable.

Much more money would be directed into the murky world of independent groups and funneled through parties — the North Carolina Democratic Party financed 20 percent of Perdue’s 2008 campaign as it is. The effect would be to obfuscate the link between candidate and contributor further.

The problem with elections is not private money; it’s transparency. We don’t need more regulation. We need more sunshine so that the public can witness the linkages between elected officials, campaign contributions, and public policy. It is knowledge that truly empowers the voter.

Andy Taylor is chairman of political science in the School of Public and International Affairs at N.C. State University and a columnist for Carolina Journal.