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Kay Yu
Kay Yu (Democratic Party) is a judge of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania. She assumed office on January 1, 2024. Her current term ends on January 2, 2034.
Yu (Democratic Party) ran for election for judge of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania. She won in the general election on November 7, 2023.
Yu completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Kay Yu was born in Seoul, South Korea. She earned a high school diploma from Roosevelt High School. She earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1988 and a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1993. Her career experience includes working as a mediator. In 2020, Yu served as the Voter Protection Director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and the Biden-Harris Campaign in Pennsylvania. From 2008 to 2013, she served as a commissioner and chairperson of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.[1]
Yu has been affiliated with the following organizations:[1]
- Vice-chair, Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) Board
- Member, Board of Directors of The Dialogue Institute
- Member, Board of Directors of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania
Elections
2023
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judges Genece E. Brinkley, Joel S. Johnson, and Rayford A. Means filed to run for retention in 2023 but later withdrew.[2] As a result, 10 seats on the court were up in the primary election, but 13 seats were up in the general election on November 7, 2023. The Democratic Party nominated candidates James Eisenhower, Elvin Ross, and Raj Sandher to run for the additional three seats in the general election.[3]
See also: City elections in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2023)
General election
General election for Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas (13 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on November 7, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Tamika Washington (D)  | 9.5 | 204,468 |
| ✔ |  | Natasha Taylor-Smith (D) | 9.4 | 201,305 |
| ✔ |  | Samantha Williams (D) | 8.9 | 190,770 |
| ✔ |  | Kay Yu (D) | 8.6 | 184,310 |
| ✔ |  | Brian McLaughlin (D) | 8.4 | 181,161 |
| ✔ | Chesley Lightsey (D) | 8.2 | 175,248 | |
| ✔ | John Padova Jr. (D) | 7.7 | 165,392 | |
| ✔ |  | Jessica Brown (D) | 7.2 | 155,170 |
| ✔ |  | Caroline Turner (D) | 7.1 | 152,850 |
| ✔ | Damaris Garcia (D) | 6.6 | 141,108 | |
| ✔ | James Eisenhower (D) | 6.5 | 138,927 | |
| ✔ | Elvin Ross (D) | 6.0 | 128,519 | |
| ✔ | Raj Sandher (D) | 5.8 | 124,315 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.2 | 3,961 | ||
| Total votes: 2,147,504 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas (13 seats)
The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on May 16, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Natasha Taylor-Smith | 10.3 | 145,242 |
| ✔ | | Tamika Washington | 9.3 | 130,896 |
| ✔ | | Samantha Williams | 8.6 | 121,340 |
| ✔ | | Kay Yu | 7.8 | 109,961 |
| ✔ | John Padova Jr. | 7.2 | 100,946 | |
| ✔ | Chesley Lightsey | 6.5 | 91,646 | |
| ✔ | | Brian McLaughlin | 6.2 | 87,367 |
| ✔ | Damaris Garcia | 6.2 | 86,824 | |
| ✔ | | Caroline Turner | 6.1 | 86,095 |
| ✔ | | Jessica Brown | 5.8 | 81,517 |
 | Will Braveman | 5.6 | 78,447 | |
 | Wade Albert | 5.5 | 78,124 | |
 | Kenneth Joel | 5.0 | 69,900 | |
| Qawi Abdul-Rahman | 3.9 | 54,810 | ||
| Melissa Francis | 3.5 | 48,868 | ||
| Joe Green | 2.7 | 38,524 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.1 | 865 | ||
| Total votes: 1,411,372 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- MK Feeney (D)
- Colleen McIntyre Osborne (D)
- Aaron Bell (D)
Endorsements
To view Yu's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Yu in this election.
Campaign themes
2023
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released November 21, 2022 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kay Yu completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Yu's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
- Currently, I serve as a neutral arbitrator and mediator. Essentially, I am a private judge helping people resolve their conflicts. I absolutely love this work. But I am a public servant at heart. That is why I am running for judge in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.
- If elected, it would be my privilege to serve as Philadelphia’s first Korean-American judge.
- I pledge to all Philadelphians that, as a judge, I will listen intently, consider wisely, and decide fairly.
When I was ten, I found deportation notices for my entire family. By the time I was in college, I was working hard to navigate the new immigration laws that had just passed. This gave me the opportunity to become my own first client of sorts. I went to the law library to research the new immigration laws, started gathering evidence, and ultimately submitted my application for permanent residency. I wish I could have done the same for my mom, but by then, she had already passed away.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2023 Elections
External links
|
Candidate Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on December 22, 2022.’’
- ↑ The Philadelphia Inquirer, "Three key Court of Common Pleas judicial seats are now up for grabs in Philly’s general election," September 8, 2023
- ↑ The Legal Intelligencer, "3 New Candidates Added to Ballot for 'Magic Seat' Spots on Phila. Bench," September 19, 2023
Federal courts:
Third Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Western District of Pennsylvania • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Western District of Pennsylvania
State courts:
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania Superior Court • Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court • Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas • Pennsylvania Magisterial Districts
State resources:
Courts in Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania judicial elections • Judicial selection in Pennsylvania
