Voting assistance on the Judicial Performance Reviews

I voted early, by absentee ballot, about two weeks ago. Today, my Stepdad's ballot came and he asked me to help him vote. It was a great bonding experience, sitting at the dinner table, discussing politics.

For the partisan races, he already decided how he'd vote. For nonpartisan races and Propositions, I explained the candidates and issues as impartially as I could and he made his choices. I must have done a very good job on the impartiality thing, because on a few of the Propositions, he voted counter to what I did.

When it got to the Judicial Performance Reviews, like many folks he simply didn't continue. Too many of them and, to be quite honest, I'm not as up on all of the judges as I would like to be. I could only give him tips on a few of them that I'd researched.

For the rest of you, if you haven't already voted, Blog for Arizona has a good post on how to evaluate and vote intelligently on those numerous "Judicial Performance Reviews" on our ballot.

The best guide for the citizen interested (as few are) in making an informed vote on judicial retention is the Arizona Commission on Judicial Performance Review. Unlike voting based on party affiliation like the ideologues over at Sonora Alliance are advocating, retention should be based on ability, not ideology.

I'm not kidding myself that many people will actually bother. The drop-off for this section of the ballot is astronomical. Of course, that means that relatively few informed votes can carry a lot of weight. If you want to be such a voter, I'm here to help.

Unlike most of you, I actually clicked through to the JPR. Then I looked at the scores, and then I looked at the reviews by attorney's who appeared in the judges courtrooms, the juries who sat in the jury boxes, and the witnesses who took the stands in their courts. It is rare for the jurors or witnesses to complain; they don't actually spend all the much time with the judge, and they are usually fairly indulgent toward these parties. Where the real friction happens is with the attorneys whom they deal with repeatedly and garner a reputation amongst. That's where to look for signs of trouble.

Thanks very much for the helpful tips, BfA!