Wisconsinites this year are electing their 71 DAs, powerful county officials with wide discretion over who gets prosecuted to what degree of severity. But voters only have a choice in four of those elections. Across the rest of the state, in 67 out of 71 DA races, just one candidate is running unopposed in both the primary and the general election, Bolts reports. This means that the final result is already known in a startling 94% of the year’s DA races, limiting what little public oversight and accountability exists. These uncontested elections cut off any public debate that a competitive race could have sparked on issues rocking the state, like police oversight or abortion rights. “It’s a missed opportunity for the public,” said Craig Johnson, a Milwaukee lawyer and board president of Wisconsin Justice Initiative, a group that advocates for criminal legal reforms in the state. “It’s a missed opportunity for the community to engage in the kind of conversation and discussion of ideas that would be helpful in trying to move the criminal justice system forward.”
An analysis of past election filings found that most of the state’s DA offices, 58% of the total, have seen no contested DA election in over ten years. That means that one candidate has run unopposed in the last three cycles. Even in the counties that have experienced some competition, it’s still infrequent: Out of the seven election cycles from 2004 to 2024, roughly two-thirds of Wisconsin counties have seen no more than one contested election. This isn’t just a dynamic in the sparsely populated parts of the state. Three of Wisconsin’s ten most populous counties have held no DA race with multiple candidates since at least 2002. None has held more than two. “It’s a problem for democratic accountability, given DAs have so much power, when there isn’t a choice for voters in the vast majority of counties,” said Amanda Merkwae, director of advocacy at the ACLU of Wisconsin. “If residents of a county are fighting for transparency and accountability with the DA’s office, the primary avenue of democratic accountability is through an election every four years and having a choice at the ballot box.”
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