(Please do not vote in the poll if you are not a registered California voter. Thanks.)

Unless you actually did vote in California today, in which case turn yourself in to the police.

I object. Orly is not a registered voter in IN, GI, MS, or NH, yet she tried to interfere in those elections.

Loh!

I voted by absentee ballot last month, and I just now voted in the poll. I fear Orly (or would it be James O'Keefe) will complain that I voted twice and committed voter fraud...

I'm taking my absentee ballot down to the polling place later. The DMV screwup of our registrations meant we didn't get our ballots until a few days ago, and I...well, forgot to mail it.

This seems like the perfect venue for this question:

How do you vote for the elected judges? I don't know anything about them. The party slate is helpful but still...it's hard to know. The candidAtes' websites are somewhat helpful but also self serving.

usually a local lawyers group will put out recommendations.

As for me, I usually leave those alone if I don't know anything about the candidates.

I also skip it if I don't know. LA County bar has this guide:

http://www.lacba.org/showpage.cfm?pageid=13863

I skipped them because I don't think we should be voting for judges.

I've actually known a couple of judges in prior elections. Of course i voted for them for them but this time I went with the slate mailer.

Our small dem club had a candidates' forum a couple of years ago. We invited several candidates for judicial office to address us and asked them the same question. Not one of them said don't vote. Slate mailers, bar association, whatever it takes, they said.

I know I shouldn't vote. I dont think judges should be elected either, but there it is on my ballot and I just can't help myself.

I do vote for judges, even though I don't think they should be elected and I'm really bored with judges' races.

But in the last couple of years, an absolute nut-case almost got elected locally because he and his minions were able to put up enough signage near the polls to get some name recognition. Ever since that happened, I look up who the judges are, mark a sample ballot, and take it to the polls for reference.

If they're going to elect judges anyway, I want the best we can get (or at least, no nut jobs).

^^^ yes. That's why.

Hey now that the election is over with, can everyone else vote? Everyone into the pool! It's skinny dipping time?

Sure.

"For the record": The (purported) California-voter-only results were 2 for Taitz, 20 for not-Taitz, and 0 for no one.

A few cycles back, there was a rather heated race that included a fair number of campaign donations to one of the candidates viewed as friendly to developers. I don't recall the outcome, but we had some discussions about electing judges here in Oregon.

Hmph. That's nice, invite us over when all the best noms are gone.

The devil made me do it.

Question:

• Is it worse not to vote and discover later that a handful of nuts who did vote carried a nut job over
  the top, or

• Is it worse to vote for someone without knowing much, if anything, about them and discover later
  that a bunch of others did the same thing and carried a nut job over the top?

I'm not being snarky here. Living in an age where judges are elected, it's a real dilemma. I'm sure judicial candidates will tell you to vote anyway; they're not going to say anything different. Relying on slate mailers might give you some insight into their judicial philosophy but it's not a given.

As to bar association recommendations... especially in California...

If I know nothing about a candidate, I don't vote for them. I do take the sample ballot, look up the judge recommendations, and make a decision before I go to the polls. I didn't always do that, but the nutcase judge that almost got elected made me decide that I would do it for judges.

In the general election and in partisan races, knowing their party tells me something about them -- sometimes enough to vote (or rather, to vote for the alternative). But if they're people I've never heard of, or haven't heard enough to form an opinion, I don't vote for them, which means that I will skip races.

Understand and agree, ducktape. I should have been clearer. Part of my post was referring back to an earlier one of kate's where she referenced the suggestions of judicial candidates (slates and **choke** **gasp** bar association recommendations).

Local bar associations making recommendations regarding judicial candidates are not the same thing as the State Bar entity responsible for lawyer discipline.

My local bar association has a committee of experienced practitioners who rate the candidates.

See the results here.

Orly Taitz has brought great shame to my profession, to my state and to my county. But we do have a functioning judicial system, many fine judges, and hundreds of honorable lawyers in our local bar associations. Give us a friggin' break already.

One of whom is doing a very fine job in an interesting Mississippi case

Now that it's all over, I can tells y'all a thing. No, I did not vote for my beloved Orlanna. As funny as that would have been...I just couldn't throw away a vote in the new jungle primary system.

However, there is the tale of one of my little bros (the Yeti) and his room mate. They both do vote by mail (as does everbody I know) and they were filling out their ballots together, discussing the pros and cons of blah, blah, blah, and the Yeti's roomie was angsting over the US Senator selection. He's not a DiFi fan but didn't want to cast a meaningless vote without it meaning something.

Trust me, that made sense when my brother was telling it.

Anyway, my bro, knowing of my Birfer obsession and knowing that my beloved was on the ballot, asked his roomie, "Do ya want to vote for a crazy birther?"

"Wait, what? Hell yeahs I want to vote for a crazy birther! Which one is it?"

Thus Orly gained a vote.

All because my brother wanted to make me, and his roomie, laugh. Have I mentioned how totally cool the Yeti is?

Is Orly Taitz really a (mandatory?) member of the local bar association, or is she just per law member of the state association that grants her license?

Well, you have shamed me well enough that next time I will read up on who is rated as Very Qualified or whatever by the bar, and VOTE for the judges. In L.A. County, I believe that they are appointed and then only run if someone opposes them? Is that correct? I only say that because from people I know who were appointed, but I think that was by the governor? See, I don't even know that.