When Voting, how do you handle the judges? (Chicago: appointed, law)

[jwaiter]

As Chicago voters know, the largest part of the voting sheet is to retain, or not retain, pages and pages of judges. I don't know who any of them are, so I usually vote to "No" to kick them out, until I get tired, then I abstain from voting the others.

What do you do about it?

[WhaThe]

Does this help?


The Chicago Bar Association | Judicial Evaluations

[jwaiter]

Originally Posted by WhaThe

Does this help?


The Chicago Bar Association | Judicial Evaluations

No, I'm aware there exist recommendations, I'm curious as to what real voters do? Do they use the recommendation? Abstain? Vote all yes? All no? What do you do?

[almost3am]

skip all judges

[nana053]

I usually skipped the judges unless I had specific information on a particular one. I'm not in Texas, but I only voted for one judge this year - he is helpful to our library and comes to the
friends of the library meetings. In contested races, I did vote against certain ones, but I doubt it will have any effect.

[Vlajos]

I do a little of all the above.

I also voted last week. It was much less hectic than on voting day.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by jwaiter

... so I usually vote to "No" to kick them out, until I get tired, then I abstain from voting the others.

What do you do about it?

I do the same as you. Being a typical, low-level judge shouldn't be a long position, in my opinion. It's better to have more people serve short terms so that law is enforced as written. Higher-level judges should have some security against politics, but I don't see any benefit to low-level judgeships being career positions. I don't even really think we should be voting for low-level judges - they should just be an administratively-appointed 1 or 2-year term that can't be served back-to-back, perhaps appointed by a committee (or bar) of higher-level judges.

Originally Posted by Vlajos

...
I also voted last week. It was much less hectic than on voting day.

So did I.

[SCCP]

I would suggest looking up the various recommendations on the judges (several bar associations and other organizations offer them). I like to cross-check several sources. I'll vote yes for judges that are unanimously "recommended" or considered "qualified." I will usually do some additional Googling on my own before deciding on a "no" vote.

If you don't have time to conduct any research, I would personally suggest skipping the judicial portion. But some people either vote all yes by default (I guess on a theory that judges generally should have life tenure, as is the case federally) or vote all no (under the opposite theory I suppose?).

In practice, judges are almost always retained.

On a final note, I agree completely that early voting is the way to go.

[treemoni]

Originally Posted by jwaiter

I don't know who any of them are, so I usually vote to "No" to kick them out]

Same. Of course it means nothing since they're going to keep their posts anyway, but I don't believe in unlimited terms. This ain't the Supreme Court.