have no idea who the people are behind the names on the ballot for state Supreme Court, Superior Court and Commonwealth Court. In fact, how many Pennsylvanians even know what judges do in these different courts? The only court most of us are familiar with is traffic court. So what do we do when we get in front of the voting machine? Statistics show that the candidate listed first (with ballot positions chosen by lottery) has a definite advantage. Voters often vote for the candidate whose name sounds familiar, or matches their own ethnic heritage, for example, Italian-American. In some elections, a woman candidate might have an advantage—if there’s only one women, and female voters go the way one woman in Perry county once told me, “Don’t tell my husband, but I always vote for the woman.” (This after her husband told me, “Oh, my wife always votes the way I do.”)

The recent scandal in Luzerne County shows how critical it is to have judges with reputations for fairness and integrity. In that scandal, in case you missed it, hundreds, maybe thousands of children, were sentenced without fair trials and sent to a private juvenile detention center in which the judges had a financial interest. “Putting courts into politics, and compelling judges to become politicians, in many jurisdictions has almost destroyed the traditional respect for the bench,” one commentator wrote on the causes of popular dissatisfaction with the administration of justice. That was in 1906. Since then, many states have wrestled with the problem of how to select qualified judges in a way that still follows the will of the people.

The group Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts promotes public education about the judicial system and argues for judicial reform, particularly the merit selection of judges. Currently, some judges are appointed (the U.S. Supreme Court), some are elected (Pennsylvania’s various levels of courts), and some nominated by a specially selected commission. In the latter procedure, merit selection, the governor usually appoints judges from the pool of qualified nominees chosen by commission, the state senate confirms the nominee, and after four or more years, the people get their say in the form of a retention.