What are you doing on August 11?
If you live in Hennepin County, you could be casting a primary vote for the most influential legal official in town. It’s a position that doesn’t always get as much attention as other elected offices. But it has an outsized impact for residents of Minneapolis and cities and towns across the county.
To help you learn more about your choice, Sahan Journal is launching Meet Your County Attorney: an interactive quiz to help voters determine which candidate best aligns with their views.
The incumbent Hennepin County Attorney, Mary Moriarity, won’t be running for reelection. But five candidates are vying to become the county’s next top prosecutor, overseeing a staff of more than 500 people and an annual budget of $92 million. The county attorney prosecutes higher level adult criminal cases and all juvenile cases. That gives them considerable power over the charges offenders face and influence over bail and sentencing decisions. The office also represents the public in child protection and child support proceedings.
Early voting has already started. The top two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 3 general election.
Here’s how the quiz works. We asked the candidates to explain their stances on a handful of issues, such as,
- Navigating the aftermath of Operation Metro Surge
- Prosecuting juvenile crime
- Collaborating with local law enforcement and statewide offices like the attorney general.
Readers – that’s you — will have the chance to take the same quiz that each of the candidates filled out. At the end of the quiz, we’ll show you which candidate’s answers match your own positions and priorities.
If you’d like to register to vote, we’ll steer you to the right spot, too.
Last year, Sahan published a pair of quizzes called “Meet Your Mayor,” to help readers learn about the elections in Minneapolis and St. Paul. We got some questions then about whether the project was supposed to help this or that candidate.
The answer: We want these election quizzes to introduce you to the field of candidates and help you choose the one who represents your views.
Meet Your County Attorney continues Sahan Journal’s efforts to experiment with new formats and engage with our audience in new ways.
This election quiz format first ran in The City, a nonprofit newsroom in New York (with support from American Journalism Project, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing local news). Last year, Sam Rabiyah, the quiz’s original developer, helped adapt the tool for Sahan Journal and a pair of mayoral races. (Sahan benefitted from the help of Justein Fox, too.)
Rabiyah and Fox helped again this year for the Hennepin County Attorney’s election. It’s a different kind of race: There are fewer candidates, but the issues may be more complex and nuanced. We hope this election tool will help you see where the candidates’ stances differ and the issues they’re promising to address if they win office.
Enough introduction: Just hop over to the quiz and discover how the candidates match up with your own stances and political values!
We hope you find the quiz to be informative and useful. Please share your questions, suggestions and feedback on this project at contact@sahanjournal.com.
