OpenMaine Campaign Finance Data

2019 Mayoral Elections

See open and accessible campaign finance data [Data visualizations] | [raw data]

About the project

Do you want to see who donated to Portland's 2019 mayoral candidates? OpenMaine has made public information accessible and available to all. This project aims to make it easier for people to access campaign finance data which otherwise is only obtained by going directly to the City Clerk's office or by obtaining a PDF version of campaign finance contributions via a news source like the Press Herald. Our data is in an accessible format (no fuzzy PDF files or poorly scanned documents!) so that voters and interested parties can freely and easily access it.

See our project page on GitHub for status updates, and read the Wiki for a comprehensive guide on how to pitch in.

Want to help out? Sign up for the OpenMaine Slack, join the #p-campaignfinances channel and say hello:

Our methodology

This data was either entered by hand from PDF or phone pictures of the campaign contributions from the City Clerk's office. We have cross referenced data with the PDF files available on the Press Herald. This synopsis of the data does not include Employer information for donors, because each sheet (aside from one campaign, which freely submitted its donations in CSV format) had to be hand-entered. In future elections, we hope to enter this information. We made the conscious decision not to include donor names or addresses for data privacy purposes.

The future of this project

OpenMaine meets monthly at Portland Web Works at 5 Milk St in Portland. We are entirely volunteer run and driven and welcome people of all abilities to join us. We would like to expand this database to more towns in Maine to help democratize information on local elections. Want to get involved? Head to OpenMaine.org

About OpenMaine

OpenMaine is a Code for America Brigade. We are a volunteer group who seeks to liberate access to civic information in Maine. Our members are developers, designers, data scientists, storytellers, citizen journalists and civically engaged residents of all abilities. We value accessible, open access to public information.