As election season kicks off, voters have likely paid attention to races for Congress and local leaders. Races for state, county and appeals-court judges? Probably not so much. A new effort by the Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA) hopes to change that.
Launched earlier this month, the Judicial Votes Count website provides information about Ohio's judicial system and judicial candidates. OSBA CEO Mary Amos Augsburger said that historically a substantial number of voters skip voting for judicial candidates because they know little about them. For instance, there was a 16 to 18 percent dropoff in the number of voters who selected a candidate in the state’s Supreme Court races in 2020.
Judicial Votes Count has existed since 2014, pooling the efforts of OSBA, the University of Akron, and other associations and nonprofits. But visibility has been low, Augsburger said. “Our role had been to make sure we were making sure our members were aware of it, so they could be sharing information in their own communities,” she said. “It’s a great resource, but without public awareness that it’s out there, it’s not really going to be used.”
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