The Prosecutors and Politics Project at the University of North Carolina School of Law is excited to announce the launch of a new website to serve as a clearinghouse for local prosecutor elections and related campaign contributions throughout the United States.
Prosecutors’ discretion shapes how criminal justice affects local communities and the primary check on that discretion is elections. But most of these elections are uncontested and where contested, voters do not know who is seeking to affect an election through their financial contributions.
The website includes election and campaign contribution data as far back as 2012 and as recently as 2023 with aggregated rates of uncontested elections in each state and in individual prosecutorial districts. Election year 2024 data and additional campaign finance documents will be uploaded as they are received.
Click on the link, below, to see how your local prosecutors stack up. Do you live in a place where voters have a voice in directing criminal justice policy? Do you have an incumbent prosecutor who dominates the office? Does your state suffer from rural brain drain?