This November, Coloradans will vote on Amendment W, a proposal to streamline the state’s ballot for judicial retention elections.
Currently, for each state supreme court justice facing retention, the ballot contains the question, “Shall Justice ___ of the Supreme Court be retained?” For judges on other courts, the ballot takes a similar form: “Shall Judge ____ of the ___ Court be retained?” If passed, Amendment W would allow county clerks to ask a single retention question applicable to all judges on the ballot:Â “Shall the following Justices (Judges) of the Supreme (or other) Court be retained in office?” The judges seeking retention would then be listed by name, with an option for Yes or No next to each name.
This has been billed as a cleanup measure which would shorten ballots, saving counties money and increasing voter participation in down-ballot judicial retention elections. It garnered bipartisan support in the state legislature, and has not been subject to any organized opposition. I suspect it will pass easily.
But I also wonder if there will be unintended consequences flowing from the shorter ballot. Partisan efforts to remove judges for specific decisions are aimed mostly at appellate judges, and count on voters to be ignorant about the court system. The shorter ballot exacerbates voter ignorance, by eliminating one more piece of information to help voters distinguish among the judges on the ballot. Put differently, without court designations on the ballot, some voters might not remember which judge they think they should remove, and so might just vote to remove them all.
This scenario is not likely, but neither is it unimaginable. A shorter ballot may be good for election administration, but it also presents more work for the judiciary, the bar, and the judicial performance evaluation committees in their efforts to educate the public about the real work of the courts.
The Interdependent Third Branch 