The Michigan Secretary of State’s (SOS) office operates the Michigan Campaign Finance Searchable Database so researchers can identify contributors, contribution size, and expenditures for various candidates and office holders. It has links to the Contributions Analysis and Expenditures Analysis pages. Both pages have search tools that are overwhelmingly complex for the non-specialist researcher (most Michiganders). So I’ve listed below examples of searches for contributions and expenditures.
Contribution Analysis
- I highlighted in yellow the sections that I completed for a search on Governor Whitmer. There are many different ways to search the voluminous data but these are simple examples that most people can modify for their candidate/representative of choice.
- Beware of the “I’m not a robot” feature at the top of the form. You must click it before doing all searches. Otherwise the Search button greys out on you.
- This search is limited to cumulative (total) contributions of $10,000 because you can receive and overwhelming number of contributions when searching on somebody like Whitmer. This search is not limited to any date range so you can see all her contributors.
- Pay attention to the date of the contribution because the records go back many years. If you want money for a specific election, use the Campaign Statement Selection section.
- Be patient once you click search, because it may take a while to retrieve all the records.
- Don’t forget to explore the data by clicking on the blue hyperlinked text. These pages are goldmines for the curious.
- You could also check how much an individual or family contributed to a race by filling out the last name in the contributor section.
Expenditure Analysis
This form is quite similar to the contributions form. Fortunately there is no annoying “I’m not a robot” button on this one.
