PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphians elected 15 new judges on Tuesday — two for Municipal Court and 13 for Common Pleas — including one rated as “not recommended” by the Philadelphia Bar Association.
The Bar Association goes through an extensive process of interviewing and evaluating judicial candidates and judges seeking retention. Yet voters routinely simply vote by party, or reflexively vote “yes” on retention — if they vote at all.
About 100,000 fewer people voted on judicial retention than for mayor on the same ballot. While some may find that discouraging, Bar Association Chancellor Mark Zucker doesn’t.
“Actually, we’re quite encouraged by the fact that there is a sign voters have been responsive to us,” he said.
The signs: With 13 candidates on the ballot for 13 Common Pleas court seats, everyone was going to win, but Raj Sandher, the one candidate rated “not recommended,” finished last with less than 6% of the vote. And, although Judge Anne Marie Coyle, who was not recommended for retention, was retained anyway, she did get the highest percentage of “no” votes.
That is not entirely satisfying to Lauren Cristella, president and CEO of the government watchdog group Committee of Seventy.
“This is one of the major problems with how we get our judges,” she said. “That we elect them in general leads to this low-information voting.”
Judges affect every aspect of our lives, Zucker said, from traffic tickets and crime to abortion and voting rights. The Bar Association has an uphill fight against voter apathy in judicial elections, which is unfortunate, he said, because judges are as crucial as any elected official — more so than many.
“It’s not something that brings out the vote necessarily, and it’s not something that wakes people up,” he admitted, but “judges are on the front lines of dealing with how our community operates.”
That’s why the Bar Association takes such pains to rate candidates — ratings that most voters don’t consult and possibly don’t even know about.
Cristella is among those who would prefer a merit selection system by a nonpartisan commission. In the meantime, she just wishes voters would pay more attention.
“We pushed so hard to include the recommendations in our voter guide and it’s just so hard to get the word out when turnout in general is so low,” she said. “It’s just a shame.”