Don't vote blindly for judges, others

A recent letter by R. Felice, president of the state bar association, stated fact that many voters fail to vote for many names on the long list of judges. He also pointed out that candidates for judge are evaluated by the state bar association and that with a little work it would be easy for the public to obtain this information, which the local papers do. Despite this fact and the fact that these judges have a major impact on our lives, many voters (including me) tend to skip over many unfamiliar names on this long list shown on the ballot.

Sadly, this is quite common at the ballot box for other candidates as well as for just judges. Worse than that is the fact that there are so many lazy voters who do not take an interest and do not show up to vote at all.

The quality of public honesty and service depends upon the voters to select and elect well-qualified and honest individuals. It would be good news if our legislators were to consider possibly changing a few election rules and consider having our judges elected directly by the bar or another legal association. If there might be a political question involved by doing, this it would seem to be better than judges being elected blindly by the voters.

No political party has all the worst of all the best candidates. One approach for responsible voting can be to research and select the candidates who best reflect your thinking, and for those unfamiliar names on the ballot take a copy of the local paper and vote for their recommendations. The investigating and reporting by the news media would seem to be far superior to voting a straight party ticket or voting blindly.

William McNutt

Des Plaines