With district attorney elections coming up in Washington and Marion counties, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon has knocked on more than 15,000 doors in those areas, encouraging people to support prosecutors who shun “tough on crime” policies.

But the new campaign, called They Report to You, is running into a problem: While the ACLU contends Oregonians support liberal criminal justice policies, the group concedes they often don’t know much about how the system actually works. That ignorance includes the central role of district attorneys, each county’s top prosecutor, who are the focus of the ACLU campaign.

“Some of what we found out is that the overwhelming majority of voters have no idea that district attorneys are elected,” said David Rogers, executive director of the group. People “actually have very little sense of what it is they do.”

The ACLU aims to fill that knowledge gap — and is raising hackles among prosecutors with its aggressive message.

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