This project has been archived. For ongoing projects on Ballotpedia, see our scope.

Project page

About the project

Every year there are judicial elections in the United States. Most states hold their elections in even-numbered years, but some have elections in odd-numbered years. A couple of states hold judicial elections every year.

The goal of this project is to compile information on all of the judges running for election, every year, in the nation. This will be an ongoing project on the wiki. We also hope to:

Provide biographical information on judicial candidates;

Allow voters to quickly and easily find out who is running for judge;

Provide voters with information on their state and local courts; and

Post results in a accurate and timely manner.

As of 2014, Judgepedia covers primary, general and runoff elections in all states that hold judicial elections. Coverage will include candidate lists/matchups, biographical information and vote totals.

A page for each judicial candidate running in a primary or general election will be created. All levels of state courts, except municipal courts, will be covered. The candidate lists will appear on the relevant court page, county page and state elections page.

Candidates facing opposition in a general election will be researched and their pages filled-out with biographical/background information.

Additional, in-depth coverage will be provided for candidates running for appellate courts (supreme and intermediate appellate courts). High court races will be analyzed further on dedicated pages that can be found in Category:State supreme court elections, 2014.

Each candidate page will require, at minimum, the following components:

Infobox - 2014 election section
Intro - mention of 2014 election in the intro
Candidate categories - automatically created by the templates

Elections project templates

Template:Judicial elections, 2016. This template should be placed at the bottom of this year's election pages.

Timeline

December of previous year

Check all states for offices up for election.
Find schedule of election dates for all those states.
Create page for all election dates with filing deadline, primary and general elections.
Create election pages for each state.
Create template for that year with election pages.
Update Judgepedia's Election Central

After filing deadline passes

Find list of candidates. This is typically found on the Secretary of State's website. Some local candidates are listed on the county boards of elections websites. For help in where to find that information, visit a state's general elections page. For an example, see: Idaho judicial elections.
Create candidate pages, or add election info to existing pages - see Judgepedia: How to create a candidate page.

Include the following sections:

Infobox
Intro
Elections section (should go before bio info, see: {{2014 candidate}} or {{2014 retention}} templates)

Add {{2014 elections DPL}} template to corresponding court pages.

If the court page does not have separate header tabs for "Court" and "Elections", add them (see: Help:Header tabs).
Add a "2014" H2 header with the template beneath it

Add {{County elections DPL}} corresponding county pages.

Candidate pages for a state should be created/updated no later than 4 weeks after that state's filing deadline has passed.^[1] For states with fewer candidates, these pages should be up within 2 weeks of the filing deadline.

After the primary election

Update the primary vote information in the infobox.
Update the primary vote information in the election section.

Results of a primary should be posted within 2 weeks of the election.^[1]

Between primary and general election

Add biographical information to all candidates running in the general election.
List of candidates posted on the secretary of state or county board of elections websites should be double-checked against our elections pages. This ensures that withdrawn candidates get removed from our tables and minor-party candidates (that mostly do not participate in the primary elections) get added.
Add bar association rankings to pages.

After general election

General election results from November should be posted no later than the third Friday of that month. Supreme court results will be posted the day after the election. For states with different general election dates, results should be posted within 2 weeks of the election.
Update intro sentence accordingly
For non-incumbents, change the "Title" line in their infobox to "Judge-elect" or "Former judicial candidate"
Update term expiration date in 1) the infobox, 2) the intro, 3) the career section (if needed), and 4) the categories.
Add new judges to the appropriate court page with the template {{judgeelect}} next to their name.
If a current judge loses re-election, update their page accordingly and add the retiring judges category.
When official/certified results are published, update pages accordingly.
Election analysis and statistics will be reported in late November.

January of the following year

Update category:January judge update court pages and all corresponding judges who were marked as "judge-elects".

Hints

When building a candidate's page, follow this format for posting information to the wiki: Judgepedia: How to create a candidate page.

Results should be posted from a secretary of state or county board of elections website, if possible.

Remember when updating a candidate page: intro, election section, category, and candidate section in infobox. Scan page to make sure that tenses are up to date.

To-do list

Previous years

2013

2012

There were elections in these states in 2012.

2011

State	Filing date	Primary date	General Election
Connecticut judicial elections, 2011		June 21	August 16
April Louisiana judicial elections, 2011	February 11 and September 8	N/A	April 2
October Louisiana judicial elections, 2011	September 9	N/A	October 22 (November 19 runoff)
Missouri judicial elections, 2011			April 5
Nevada judicial elections, 2011		April 5	June 7
New York judicial elections, 2011		September 13	November 8
Ohio judicial elections, 2011		May 3	November 8
Pennsylvania judicial elections, 2011	March 8	May 17	November 8
Wisconsin judicial elections, 2011	December 2010	February 15	April 5

State	Candidate pages created	Primary results posted	All pages have new infobox and category	Candidates double checked	General Election/Candidates results posted	Court pages updated
Connecticut judicial elections, 2011	A	A	A	A	A	A
April Louisiana judicial elections, 2011	A	N/A	A		A	A
October Louisiana judicial elections, 2011	A	N/A	A	A	A	A
Missouri judicial elections, 2011	A	N/A	A	A	A	A
Nevada judicial elections, 2011	A	A	A	A	A	A
New York judicial elections, 2011		N/A	A	A	A
Ohio judicial elections, 2011	A	A	A	A	A	A
Pennsylvania judicial elections, 2011	A	A	A	A	A	A
Wisconsin judicial elections, 2011	A	A		A	A	A