Arizona voters have many decisions to make in this year’s election, including high-profile candidate races and propositions. Arizona voters are also tasked with deciding whether certain judges should keep their jobs.
KJZZ listeners have asked: How do I make an informed decision in Arizona's judicial retention elections?
Here is an explanation of how these retention elections work, and some information to help guide voters, based in part on past reporting:
Which judges go on the ballot?
All Arizona voters are asked to vote on retaining Arizona Supreme Court justices and judges on the Arizona Court of Appeals, all of whom were appointed by governors. After serving for two years, they face their first retention election, then face subsequent retention elections every six years.
And voters in some of the state’s largest counties are also asked to weigh in on Superior Court judges, because those judges, too, were appointed by governors. These judges face retention elections a little more frequently: every four years.
In retention elections, the judges run unopposed: voters decide whether the judges should keep their seat but don't choose between multiple candidates.
In Arizona’s smaller counties, judges are directly elected by voters in traditional races against other candidates and therefore don’t face retention elections.
“When you’re in a smaller county, it’s more likely that you’re familiar with that judge. You maybe knew them when they were a practicing attorney, and you maybe have some direct experience or knowledge of that person and their work,” Aaron Nash, a spokesperson for the Arizona Judicial Branch, told KJZZ in 2020.
In Maricopa, Pima, Pinal and Coconino counties, Superior Court judges are vetted by a nonpartisan commission, which provides the governor a list of eligible candidates for each open judgeship. The governor appoints a judge to fill that seat, who then has to face voters every four years.
“When you get to a large population, you just don’t have that same kind of direct experience with your judges,” Nash said. “That’s where the commission comes in and says, ‘What’s most important to being a judge?’ and then establishes these votes on whether they meet those standards or not.”
Much like ballot initiatives, voters make a “yes” or “no” choice for each judge. A “yes” vote means the voter wants the judge to remain on the court. A “no” vote means the voter wants the judge removed.
Supreme Court justices
Statewide, all voters will see the same two Supreme Court justices on the ballot this year: Clint Bolick and Kathryn King.
Bolick was appointed by former Gov. Doug Ducey in 2016 to replace the retiring Justice Rebecca White Berch, the same year that Ducey expanded the state Supreme Court from five justices to seven. Bolick won his first retention election in 2018.
King was appointed by Ducey in 2021 and is facing her first retention election.
Appellate court justices
The Arizona Court of Appeals is divided into two divisions. Division 1, which is based in Phoenix, serves Apache, Coconino, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Yavapai and Yuma counties. Division 2 is based in Tucson and serves Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal and Santa Cruz counties.
Voters in each division will decide the fate of two judges: Brian Furuya and Angela Paton in Division 1, and Peter Eckerstrom and Christopher Staring in Division 2.
Superior Court justices
There are 63 judges at the Superior Court level up for retention elections this year: 42 in Maricopa County, 16 in Pima County, four in Pinal County and one in Coconino County.
Evaluating performance
Every justice and judge who is up for a retention election is independently rated by a state committee called the Arizona Commission on Judicial Performance Review.
Each election year, the commission releases the Judicial Performance Reports, which compile statistics on each judge up for retention.
“[The] commission does surveys of people who are in court in front of those judges, so witnesses, lawyers, parties,” Nash said. “They compile those survey results against a standard criteria, and then that commission issues a decision on whether the judge meets or does not meet those standards.”
The members of the commission then each vote on whether or not the judge meets judicial performance standards.
The Judicial Performance Reports are nonpartisan and focus solely on a judge’s job performance. For voters who might want to retain or reject judges based on their stances on key issues, advocacy groups often endorse judges or provide judges with surveys on issues the organization represents.
Although Arizona voters have never removed a Supreme Court justice, Bolick and King are the focus of particularly intense campaigning, with advocacy groups focused on their votes in April to uphold a strict Arizona abortion ban from 1864.
And of note, a Republican-backed measure that is also on the ballots this year – Proposition 137 – would not only do away with judicial retention elections, but apply retroactively. In other words, even if voters opted to remove Bolick and King, if Proposition 137 were to pass, it would negate the retention election and keep Bolick and King in place on the high court.
Do voters have to decide on all the judges?
Another KJZZ listener asked if he had to complete the section about whether several Superior Court judges should be retained in order to have his ballot counted.
If a voter decides not to vote on races, like the Arizona Corporation Commission or retaining a Superior Court judge, for example, that contest is not counted. The only contests that do count are those that are properly filled out.
In a previous interview, Diana Solorio, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in 2020, explained what a voter should do if they overvoted, or selected too many candidates for a specific race.
“Make sure if you over-vote and you want to make sure that that contest is counted, you can request a replacement ballot," she said.
Maricopa County voters can request a replacement ballot by calling 602-506-1511.
