Friends and Neighbors Voting in Judicial Retention Elections: a Research Note Comparing Trial and Appellate Court Elections

Abstract

T HIS brief article reports the variations in the friends and neighbors effect when judicial retention elections for major trial courts are compared with judicial retention elections for appellate courts. Previous work on major trial court retention elections (Aspin and Hall 1987) reported that while voters in the home county of the judge were more likely to vote than were the voters in the rest of the district, there was no home county advantage in affirmative votes. Standing in sharp contrast to the trial court pattern is the clear home county advantage reported herein for appellate court retention elections. This home county advantage is similar in magnitude to that recently reported for statewide partisan elections (Rice and Macht 1987); however, in contrast to the reported patterns for partisan elections, the home county advantage for appellate court retention elections is related to population. The friends and neighbors effect is a calculated promotion of local interest. Voters support a candidate not primarily for what he stands for or because of his capacities, but because of where he lives (Key 1949: 37). Key labeled the appeal-back the home-town boyirrelevant, but he noted that in the absence of traditional voting cues, such an appeal based on boosterism can exert no little influence over an electorate (Key 1949: 41). Judicial retention elections became a part of the judicial selection process with the development of the system of merit selection. This merit selection process and the use of retention plebiscites were two efforts aimed at taking politics out of judicial selection. The merit selection process was seen as a practical compromise between those who sought an independent judiciary and those whose goal was judicial accountability. The merit selection process was designed first to get quality judges into office and then to ensure they would be able to serve for long periods of time. Although the judges would be insulated from political influences and removal from the