That Court of Appeals Ballot

In July John Martin, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, announced his retirement effective August 1st. Given the timing of his decision, state law requires an election in November to fill the seat but no primary in advance to reduce the number of candidates. It appears that everyone who has ever aspired to be an appellate judge sees this as an opportunity to catch the ring, and 19 candidates have filed. One of them will get more votes than the others, though it may not be very many, and will be elected with no run-off. Nineteen candidates, one vote, one time, most votes wins. Some people may think this is not the best way to choose a judge for an eight-year term on North Carolina’s second highest court. How did we end up with such an election? Nonpartisan elections Let’s start with North Carolina’s switch from partisan to nonpartisan elections. Until the late 1990s we elected all state judges in partisan elections. Just like the governor and legislators and county commissioners, judicial candidates ran on political party labels. Each party held a primary to determine its candidates and those party nominees faced off in the general election. If a vacancy opened up too late for a primary, as with Judge Martin’s seat, the executive committees of the parties would choose the candidates for the November ballot, one for each party. A nice neat ballot with no undue clutter of candidates. Starting in 1998, though, North Carolina moved to nonpartisan [...]