Why do fewer voters cast ballots for judges?

A slew of reports come across my desk that tell a lot about what’s going on in North Carolina, and most of them have implications about choices we’ll face before long. For those who like to absorb data and analysis, take a look at the latest edition of “North Carolina data-net,” a politics and policy newsletter from the Program on Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill, on the declining public interest in voting for judges.(Scroll down on the home page to July '07 current report on the judiciary.)
The report by Prof. Ferrel Guillory and his staff notes how voters “regularly cast fewer ballots in judgeship races than in elections for governor and other state offices,” and notes the changes in how we choose judges. It also notes that a fairly new public funding mechanism used by most appellate judicial candidates “does not provide sufficient resources to run ‘effective’ statewide campaigns” – at least in comparison to other statewide offices. And it notes that making those races non-partisan also gives voters less information about candidates. The report doesn’t make a judgement on the success of the program because, with just two election cycles, there isn’t enough trend data.
And there’s a report on the difficulty that essential workers such as police and firefighters have finding affordable housing in the communities they serve and protect. The report was done by researchers for the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at UNC Chapel Hill for the N.C. Association of Community Development Corporations. The report, “Workforce Housing Needs in Brunswick County, North Carolina” focuses on one coastal county where land and housing prices have made it difficult for essential workers to live where they work. While the findings are based on Brunswick’s experience, they reflect the same sorts of trends that happen elsewhere in fast-growing urban areas such as Mecklenburg and Wake.
Who cares? Depends on whether you want firefighters or police officers or teachers or other essential workers who leave in your community and care what happens to it. “The lack of such workforce housing has a variety of negative impacts including difficulty in recruiting and retaining employees, and longer commuting times that result in increased traffic congestion and more air pollution,” write William Rohe and Spencer Cowan, the report’s authors.
The workforce report will be available soon via the organization's website. Click here for more.