Thursday, November 01, 2012
“ACLU of Indiana Challenges Marion County Judicial Election System”
Press release: “Indianapolis – Marion County voters have less influence than they may think about which judges are chosen for the Marion Superior Court. Today the ACLU of Indiana, on behalf of Common Cause Indiana, filed a lawsuit challenging state law governing that process to ensure voters of every political stripe can cast meaningful votes for all judgeships to be filled in Marion County. ‘The system for electing judges in Marion County is unique in Indiana, and possibly the nation,’ said ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk. ‘It is imperative that we ensure that when the State opts to fill positions through the ballot box, it does so in a manner that allows Hoosiers’ votes to matter.’”I am one of the few living people to run for Marion County judge and lost. In 2000, I put together a slate of 5 judge candidates to run as Libertarians. We got 100,000 votes, not bad for a party that usually gets 1 million votes total around the country. The parties have a deal where they split the judgeships between them. The county chairs pick precinct captains, except in the rare case where someone runs for that office. The precinct captains, as directed by the chair, slate the anointed candidates, who are almost always unopposed in the primary. We ran just to be gadflies, which was fun. I had 1000 signs made up that we put around. It was a fairly low-key race, before the days when MN GOP v White, a Bopp case, opened up judicial speech a bit.
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