“The benefit to electing judges is giving the public more buy-in and respect for the justice system,” says David Brody, a criminal justice professor at Washington State University who has studied judicial elections. “If people lose respect for the court, it’s a major blow to the community.”
Yet, given the issues surrounding judicial elections, Brody and other experts question whether judges should be elected. For example, information about judicial candidates is relatively sparse (compared to, say, a candidate for mayor or city council) and is not as easily obtainable.
“Do they share the values that you want a judge to have?” Brody questions. “It’s very difficult to get that information. People don’t know what they’re voting for.”
Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are appointed by the president and approved by the Senate, for example, and electing judges is virtually unheard of in the rest of the world.