Judges are one thing I never know about. More than half of on my ballot are unopposed incumbents. But there are a few races and it’s probably a good idea to know a little about them. Try these places:
Minnesota Lawyer is excellent.
Minnesota Lawyer Blog has video interviews with candidates and other related news.
Judgepedia: Minnesota Supreme Court
OutFront Minnesota’s Judicial Endorsements
MnIndy has a number of articles on judges who you may not realize are crazy fundies (Deborah Hedlund, Dan Griffith, Tim Tinglestad).
The Star Tribune’s MyVote will show you which judges will be on your ballot, in case you haven’t already looked at your own sample ballot.
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It’s odd to me that they would ask the Soil & Water Supervisor candidates to vote on “tax-payer funded abortions”, “tax-payer funded obscene art” and “gay adoption of children”.
Also, “gay adoption of children”? I’m having trouble with the grammar in that one.
I do not plan to vote for any judges. One thing my political science degree taught me is exactly why judges are (or should be) appointed and not elected: because if they’re elected, there becomes a chance that they will begin to rule with an eye towards November. And I think that is dangerous.
That makes sense, Art. I’m considering only casting votes in the contested judicial races and abstaining from voting for all the unopposed judges.
When I voted this morning I left the entire back of the ballot — where all the judges were — blank. I did my homework on our local mayoral candidates and the U.S. and state congress races, but I have no business selecting judges on anything but funny names. My wife always votes for anyone but the incumbent, figuring she should shake up the system. Not that I agree with that, but what if everyone voted like that all the time?
Thanks for posting this. I wish I would’ve found this a week ago so I could go through all of it. I looked for over an hour to try to find a “sample ballot” page last night and failed. Grr.
Also, Art: I don’t disagree with you, but I wanted to point out that the ability to elect your judge is part of our state’s constitution. Just sayin’
Greg: If everyone voted like that, we’d be electing Hedlund and Tinglestad. Check those links for why you might consider that a bad thing. I opt for your method if I know nothing: I don’t select a candidate.
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