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SALT LAKE CITY — If you've ever been confused about how to vote for the various Utah judges that appear on your election ballot, you're definitely not alone.
Nearly a quarter of Utah voters don't finish filling out their ballots, and many feel they don't have enough information to make informed decisions about judges, according to the Utah Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission. That's why JPEC — an independent commission created by the Utah Legislature in 2008 to evaluate judicial performance — recently revamped its website, judges.utah.gov, with the goal of making it easier for voters to find information about the judges on the ballot.
Unlike political leaders, judges don't face challenges from opponents in elections, they instead face a simple retention vote at the end of each term. As each judge nears the end of their term, the performance commission conducts a retention evaluation and votes to decide whether they meet the minimum performance standards. The results are then posted to judges.utah.gov, along with details about the judge's record, survey results from attorneys, and scoring breakdowns to compare judges to their peers in various categories.
"These evaluations provide in-depth details on judges, something voters tell us is valuable before they cast their ballot," said Jennifer Yim, executive director of the commission. "Voters play an important role in our state's retention system for judges, and we want to provide key information to them on their devices."
Yim pointed out that most of the judges listed on the site receive favorable recommendations from the commission, but that doesn't mean the evaluations are lenient to judges.
Nearly every time JPEC gives a judge a negative review, the judge chooses to resign or retire.
–Jennifer Yim, JPEC executive director
Most judges see marked improvement from their midterm evaluations, Yim said — which she views as a positive sign that the evaluations incentivize underperforming judges to step up their game — and some of those who receive low marks opt to not seek retention. State law allows retiring judges to keep their evaluations private.
"Nearly every time (the commission) gives a judge a negative review, the judge chooses to resign or retire," Yim said. "That information doesn't become available to the public by law. So when you scroll through the website, you see what looks like all of the good judges. And, in fact, that's correct, because most of the judges with performance problems have either corrected those problems by retention time or have stepped down from the bench."
Although some of the worst-performing judges are weeded out before they reach the ballot, the website provides a variety of metrics voters can use. The site allows for comments from the public on any judge anywhere in the state.
The Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission also surveys hundreds of attorneys, jurors, bailiffs and court recorders about the judges they work with to compile a retention recommendation percentage separate from the commission's vote. Even judges who are unanimously recommended by the commission can receive survey scores as low as 60% or as high as 100%.
There's no magic number or metric on the site, Yim said, but lower scores could prompt voters to take a closer look at the judge they're being asked to retain. She reiterated that as an independent commission, the group doesn't make decisions about retention — it's ultimately up to the voters to decide.
"We do what we consider to be a comprehensive evaluation, if voters still want to seek more information about judges, I would encourage them to do that," Yim said. "But it really just depends on what matters to them. ... The purpose of (commision is) to give the public information that they can use to cast informed votes. I really hope that people will go to judges.utah.gov to help them do that."
