Alongside the ballot headliners of presidential candidates, U.S. representatives and candidates for the Kansas Legislature are several names that might cause Franklin County voters to scratch their heads. 

The names — however unfamiliar — belong to judges who preside over court proceedings in the Kansas Supreme Court, the Kansas Court of Appeals and the Sunflower States’ district courts. 

Alongside the ballot headliners of presidential candidates, U.S. representatives and candidates for the Kansas Legislature are several names that might cause Franklin County voters to scratch their heads. 

The names — however unfamiliar — belong to judges who preside over court proceedings in the Kansas Supreme Court, the Kansas Court of Appeals and the Sunflower States’ district courts. 

During Kansas’ Nov. 6 general elections, Franklin County voters can answer “yes” or “no” for the retainment of nine judges in Kansas, three of whom are from Franklin County. 

Making such decisions is not easy for some voters, including Barbara Netherland, Ottawa. A lack of information on the judges frequently fuels confusion when considering whether a particular judge should remain or be eliminated, Netherland said.

“I never think anything about [the judges] until I have that ballot in my hand,” Netherland wrote in an email to The Herald. “I have had several others express the same feeling. I never know most of [the judges] and have no idea whether they should be retained or voted out.”

Netherland’s response isn’t unusual, Christy Molzen, program director for the Kansas Commission on Judicial Performance, said. After casting votes for president, federal and state representatives, Molzen said voters often are bewildered by the names near the end of their ballot, spurring a round of grumbling phone calls for her office. 

“It’s a very common complaint from people when they get to the bottom of the ballot and they don’t know who the people are, in terms of [voting for] retention,” Molzen said.

About half of Kansas’ judges face different election rules depending on their locations and courts, Molzen said. For example, judges in the Kansas Supreme Court and in Kansas’ Fourth Judicial District, which includes Franklin County, do not face traditional partisan elections. Those judges, Molzen explained, must face a retention election, which allows area voters to keep or eliminate a judge. 

After a district or appeals court judge faces his or her first retention vote, which must occur one year after assuming a role with a particular court, he or she faces a retention vote every four years, according to the American Judicature Society. Kansas Supreme Court judges face retention elections every six years. Three of Kansas’ Fourth Judicial District’s judges — Eric Godderz, Kevin Kimball and Thomas Sachse — face retention votes this year

Knowing when a judge faces retention, however, is different than determining if he or she deserves support from voters. In an effort to provide such information to voters, the Kansas Commission on Judicial Performance in 2006 developed an Internet tool to provide recommendations on a judges’ merit. The resource — www.kansasjudicialperformance.org — received an enthusiastic response, Molzen said, adding that it provided comprehensive reviews of judges by appellate judges, attorneys and non-attorneys during the 2008 and 2010 election cycles. Despite robust use, Molzen said, the resource went defunct after the Kansas Legislature decided not to fund the program after July 2011. 

“We did get a lot of positive feedback and telephone calls from people that were really happy to have that information,” Molzen said. “We hoped to continue that [program], but obviously we got short-circuited late on that.”

In 2010, the resource recommended that all of the Fourth Judicial District’s judges — Godderz, Kimball and Sachse — be retained. 

In her 16 years as the Franklin County clerk, Shari Perry, who also is the county’s election officer, said she’s never seen a judge voted off the bench. In addition to other ballot items, Perry said the apparent lack of information on judges’ performance has prodded area voters to call her office. 

“[Voters] call us for lack of information for everything that’s on the ballot,” Perry said. “I don’t know where you find out anything on [the judges].”

John Steelman, the Fourth Judicial District court administrator, conceded that up-to-date information on area judges’ performance is difficult to find. Nonetheless, Steelman said if there’s no news on judges’ performance, that might be a good sign. 

“I don’t mean to be simplistic, but judges are kind of like referees,” Steelman said. “If you haven’t heard much about them, they’re probably doing a good job.” 

Bob Beatty, a professor of political science at Washburn University, agreed with Steelman in that voters might base their vote on what they don’t hear. 

“Retention elections seem to be based on negative information, meaning that if a judge is not going to be retained, it’s most likely because that judge received some sort of negative attention,” Beatty said, noting that even if a judge encounters negative attention, it’s still rare for him or her to be voted out. That infrequency might stem from peoples’ voting habits when faced with a retention question, he said.

“You’ll find that a lot of people don’t vote on retention,” Beatty said. “You’ll find that retention total votes are less than the other races. ... Some voters go in and say ‘I’m not going to vote on this because I have no information.’ But it’s the system we’ve chosen and voters go in there with the understanding that if they haven’t heard anything bad then they’ll keep the judge.”

In contrast to other states that either feature partisan elections or do not subject judges to a public vote, Beatty said, retention elections are somewhat of a hybrid system. The system, he said, has positives and negatives for Kansas’ voters.

“The pros are if something happens that’s very controversial, you can get rid of a judge in an election,” Beatty said. “The cons are that — just by the nature of how things have worked out — there’s not a lot of attention paid on the judges’ actions and it doesn’t give the voter much information.”