This empirical study analyzes sentencing data from 22,095 Pennsylvania criminal cases in the 1990s, concluding that the judicial election process leads judges to become more punitive as the election season approaches.
This empirical study of ballot roll-off in 654 supreme court elections from 1980–2000 shows that competition, incumbency, and contextual forces that increase salience and information have an important impact on voter participation.
This article presents findings that suggest that while partisan and retention elections promote strategic retirement by state supreme court justices, nonpartisan elections do not.
This empirical study analyzes state supreme court elections from 1980–1995 and finds that court reformers underestimate the substantive component of partisan elections and overestimate the degree to which nonpartisan and retention elections are insulated from partisan politics.
This empirical study uses death penalty votes in state supreme courts to show that personal as well as policy considerations affect the goals of judicial actors and that the pursuit of these goals is furthered or hindered by different types of institutional arrangements.
This empirical study suggests that state supreme court justices who face competitive elections may vote in a manner consistent with constituent opinion even when their own views differ, and that single-member districts, experience seeking reelection, and narrow vote margins, among other factors, encourage such strategic voting.
This empirical study gathers data from 260 supreme court elections held from 1990–2004 to show that greater campaign spending increases voter participation.
This article examines 208 judicial elections from 1990–2000, finding that voters appear to evaluate challengers’ qualifications and that experienced challengers lessen the electoral security of incumbents.
This empirical study of Kansas trial judges—some of whom are chosen by competitive partisan elections and some of whom are chosen by noncompetitive retention elections—concludes that electoral competitiveness motivates trial judges to sentence criminal offenders more harshly.
This article relies upon an experiment embedded within a representative national survey to conclude that the legitimacy of elected state courts is threatened not by the exercise of the free speech rights extended to candidates for judicial office in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, but by campaign contributions.