CLEVELAND — On the first day of early voting, the races at the top of the ticket for governor and U.S. senate are the big draws, capturing the attention of voters who told us they put a lot of thought into picking the right candidate.
"Yes I do, a lot," said one voter.
"I always do my research," said another.
But what about the races further down towards the bottom of the ballot — the races for county judge that, in Cuyahoga County, number 21 this year?
"Not like I probably should," said another voter. The reality is they are not alone, said Case Western Law Professor Jonathan Entin. "I'm a law professor and it's often a challenge for me to find out about the candidates," Entin said.
That's because running for judge is not like running for any other elected office.
"There are some rules that restrict what judicial candidates can say," said Entin. "You can probably say 'I'm going to be tough on crime' but there are some limits to how far you can go before it looks like you're pre-judging cases that will come before you," he said. "Judicial candidates don't get into the rough and tumble to the same extent as candidates for executive offices."
Someone whose been on both sides is former Cleveland Council President Kevin Kelley, who is now running to be a judge. Kelley's opponent in the race is current Common Pleas Court Judge Wanda Jones.
"We are restricted in what we can say if it relates to a political matter or anything that might come before us, so we're kind of limited to our resume," Kelley said.
But voters like Vida LePage of Richmond Heights have learned there are tools to assist.
"I do look at what the judicial recommendations are," said LePage.
Those recommendations in Cuyahoga County live on a website called Judge4Yourself.com, where members of six local bar associations review the judicial candidates for you and rate them. John Mitchell is one of the co-chairs.
"The idea is, really at its basest level, is to inform the public in terms of what the people who practice law in Cleveland Ohio think of a particular candidate's fitness to serve as a judge," Mitchell said. "A group of interested and public-minded lawyers got together, and the idea was to combat people running just solely on the basis of electable names and really to offer the public the ability to look and do a deep dive into judicial elections, which too many times are the bottom of the ticket."
Cuyahoga County, he said, is one of the few places in the country to offer voters the tool.
"I'll tell you it's not only not many counties do it, I don't think many states do this. I think in our informal polling, and emphasis on informal, we only think there is one other entity in the United States that does this type of rating," said Mitchell. "So the participating bar associations and their members, sometimes we can have 70 or 80 lawyers participating, really volunteer a tremendous amount of their personal time and their commitment to their respective employers and firms to really try to educate the public on the quality of our judicial candidates."
Click here to visit Judge4Yourself.com and...judge for yourself.
