Judicial ballot asks for a yes or no answer

Some people relish the idea of voting against a candidate. The TV ads bombard us with negative portrayals of candidates. You're angry and you're not going to take it anymore.

But when you walk into the voting booth today, you can't cast a vote against socialists, Marxists, Obamacare or Democrats any more than you can vote against morons, racists, Bush-supporters or Republicans. You have to vote “for” a candidate.

You can cast a no vote on a referendum question, but there is only one category where voters actually can vote no against a particular candidate judicial retention.

You can vote yes to keep a judge, and you should for the majority of judges who are competent and highly rated. Or you can vote no. Any judge who fails to get 60 percent yes votes is bounced from the bench.

Voters in most collar-county suburbs will have a chance to vote up or down on an Illinois Supreme Court justice, appellate judge or two and maybe a handful of county judges. The Illinois State Bar Association offers evaluations at www.isba.org/judicialevaluations. But voters in Cook County get to pass judgment on 69 circuit court judges.

“A full 50 percent of the (Cook County) ballot is judges,” says Malcolm Rich, executive director of the nonpartisan Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, part of a national public-interest law center that provides judicial evaluations and recommendations from 11 diverse bar associations on its www.voteforjudges.org website.

“I understand why people find it a daunting task,” Rich says, noting the actual voting for or against judges might add 10 to 15 minutes to your time spent in the voting booth. But it is time well-spent as “the consequences of one bad judge are very great and effect many hundreds of people each year.”

Despite voter anger and bar associations' recommendations each election, voters generally don't get rid of a single judge.

“In the last 40 years, there have been 14 judges who have not been retained,” Rich says, and seven of those were voted off the bench in a 1990 ballot mix-up that resulted in a reprinted ballot with type so small, voters were given magnifying glasses to help them read the judges' names. “It was almost comical if it weren't so serious.”

A few other judges have been canned because one controversial ruling resulted in an organized campaign against them.

“We really don't think it's a good idea to evaluate a judge based on one decision,” says Rich, noting that bar association evaluations take in a wide range of qualifications from legal smarts to demeanor on the bench.

No judge has been voted out since 1990, even though bar association ratings always advise the public to vote no on a handful of lousy judges.

“The retention election process has not been very successful in improving the quality of the judiciary,” Rich says.

Judges have an action committee that spends about $250,000 urging people to vote yes on all judges, and the Democratic Party, which produces the majority of judges in Cook County, also asks supporters to vote yes on all judges, Rich says.

The result is that 50 percent of voters who bother casting votes on judges robotically vote yes across the board, while the equally misguided angry voters are responsible for universal no votes on 20 percent of ballots. That means a judge will be retained unless he or she gets an overwhelming no vote from the 30 percent of voters who vote name by name.

Even if voters once again fail to fire bad judges, the vote could send a message that “a lot of these judges need improving,” Rich says, noting that 22 of the 69 judges up for retention have gotten poor marks in some areas. Peer mentoring programs and nonpartisan court monitors could help judges get up to speed.

“There are things that could be remedied,” Rich says. “A lot of these judges need improvement. Only a few need to be thrown off the bench by the voters.”