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Alabama Supreme Court elections, 2022
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The terms of two Alabama Supreme Court justices expired on January 15, 2023. The two seats were up for partisan election on November 8, 2022. A primary was scheduled for May 24, 2022.
Alabama was one of 30 states that held elections for state supreme court in 2022. That year, 84 of the 344 seats on state supreme courts were up for election. Of those, 64 were held by nonpartisan justices, 13 were held by Republican justices, and eight were held by Democratic justices. For more on the partisan affiliation of state supreme court justices, click here. For an overview of state supreme court elections in 2022, click here.
Candidates and election results
Place 5
General election
General election for Alabama Supreme Court
Greg Cook defeated Anita L. Kelly in the general election for Alabama Supreme Court on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Greg Cook (R)  | 67.4 | 943,177 |
| Anita L. Kelly (D) | 32.5 | 454,878 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.1 | 1,271 | ||
| Total votes: 1,399,326 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Anita L. Kelly advanced from the Democratic primary for Alabama Supreme Court.
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Alabama Supreme Court
Greg Cook defeated Debra H. Jones in the Republican primary for Alabama Supreme Court on May 24, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Greg Cook | 55.3 | 318,366 |
 | Debra H. Jones | 44.7 | 256,827 | |
| Total votes: 575,193 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Place 6
General election
General election for Alabama Supreme Court
Incumbent Kelli Wise won election in the general election for Alabama Supreme Court on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Kelli Wise (R) | 97.5 | 998,043 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 2.5 | 25,490 | ||
| Total votes: 1,023,533 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. Incumbent Kelli Wise advanced from the Republican primary for Alabama Supreme Court.
Judges not on the ballot
- Michael Bolin (Place 5)
Voting information
- See also: Voting in Alabama
About the Alabama Supreme Court
- See also: Alabama Supreme Court
The Alabama Supreme Court is composed of nine justices who are elected in statewide partisan elections. A full term on the court is six years. Judicial elections take place during Alabama's general elections, which are held every two years in even-numbered years.
Political composition
This was the political composition of the supreme court heading into the 2022 election. Justices on the Alabama Supreme Court are elected to their seats, and replacements are appointed by the governor in the case of midterm vacancies.
| ■ Tom Parker | Elected chief justice in 2018; elected to the court in 2004 | |
| ■ Sarah Stewart | Elected in 2018 | |
| ■ Tommy Bryan | Elected in 2012 | |
| ■ William Sellers | Appointed by Kay Ivey (R) in 2017; elected in 2018 | |
| ■ Jay Mitchell | Elected in 2018 | |
| ■ Greg Shaw | Elected in 2008 | |
| ■ Kelli Wise | Elected in 2010 | |
| ■ Michael Bolin | Elected in 2004 | |
| ■ Brad Mendheim | Appointed by Kay Ivey (R) in 2018 |
Selection
- See also: Partisan election of judges
All justices on the Alabama Supreme Court are elected for six-year terms in partisan elections.[1] The composition of the court consists of eight associate justices and one chief justice. Vacancies, which can occur when a justice dies, resigns, retires, or is removed from office, are filled through appointments by the governor of Alabama. The justice must run for the seat in the general election at least one year after being appointed.[1]
Qualifications
To be considered a candidate for the supreme court, the person must:
- Be licensed to practice law in Alabama.
- Have lived in Alabama for at least one year.
- Be 70 years of age or younger at the time of candidacy.[2]
Selection of the chief justice
The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court is elected by popular vote.[3]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters (2021)
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters, a study on how state supreme court justices decided the cases that came before them. Our goal was to determine which justices ruled together most often, which frequently dissented, and which courts featured the most unanimous or contentious decisions.
The study tracked the position taken by each state supreme court justice in every case they decided in 2020, then tallied the number of times the justices on the court ruled together. We identified the following types of justices:
- We considered two justices opinion partners if they frequently concurred or dissented together throughout the year.
- We considered justices a dissenting minority if they frequently opposed decisions together as a -1 minority.
- We considered a group of justices a determining majority if they frequently determined cases by a +1 majority throughout the year.
- We considered a justice a lone dissenter if he or she frequently dissented alone in cases throughout the year.
Summary of cases decided in 2020
- Number of justices: 9
- Number of cases: 692
- Percentage of cases with a unanimous ruling: 83.4% (577)
- Justice most often writing the majority opinion: Justice Mitchell (90)
- Per curiam decisions: 21
- Concurring opinions: 44
- Justice with most concurring opinions: Justice Mendheim (9)
- Dissenting opinions: 33
- Justice with most dissenting opinions: Justice Shaw (10)
For the study's full set of findings in Alabama, click here.
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
- See also: Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation, based on a variety of factors. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on the political or ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. To arrive at confidence scores we analyzed each justice's past partisan activity by collecting data on campaign finance, past political positions, party registration history, as well as other factors. The five categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[4]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
We used the Confidence Scores of each justice to develop a Court Balance Score, which attempted to show the balance among justices with Democratic, Republican, and Indeterminate Confidence Scores on a court. Courts with higher positive Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Republican Confidence Scores, while courts with lower negative Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Democratic Confidence Scores. Courts closest to zero either had justices with conflicting partisanship or justices with Indeterminate Confidence Scores.[5]
Alabama had a Court Balance Score of 11.89, indicating Republican control of the court. In total, the study found that there were 15 states with Democrat-controlled courts, 27 states with Republican-controlled courts, and eight states with Split courts. The map below shows the court balance score of each state.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Alabama Unified Judicial System, "Qualifications of Judges," accessed July 30, 2014
- ↑ Alabama Unified Judicial System, "Alabama Appellate Courts," accessed July 30, 2014
- ↑ American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Alabama," archived October 2, 2014
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ The Court Balance Score is calculated by finding the average partisan Confidence Score of all justices on a state supreme court. For example, if a state has justices on the state supreme court with Confidence Scores of 4, -2, 2, 14, -2, 3, and 4, the Court Balance is the average of those scores: 3.3. Therefore, the Confidence Score on the court is Mild Republican. The use of positive and negative numbers in presenting both Confidence Scores and Court Balance Scores should not be understood to that either a Republican or Democratic score is positive or negative. The numerical values represent their distance from zero, not whether one score is better or worse than another.
Federal courts:
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Northern District of Alabama, Middle District of Alabama, Southern District of Alabama • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Northern District of Alabama, Middle District of Alabama, Southern District of Alabama
State courts:
Alabama Supreme Court • Alabama Court of Civil Appeals • Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals • Alabama Circuit Courts • Alabama District Courts • Alabama Juvenile Courts • Alabama Municipal Courts • Alabama Probate Courts • Alabama Small Claims Courts
State resources:
Courts in Alabama • Alabama judicial elections • Judicial selection in Alabama
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