It is not to say that a judicial performance evaluation is an expensive waste of time. No one can honestly claim that, but if the results in Utah are a prototype, the evaluations may not make a significant difference in voters’ selection when it comes to retention elections. Utah has among the nation’s best judicial performance evaluation programs thanks in part to a dedicated commission and a very hard working director, Joanne Slotnik.  The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported,

The 13 members of the Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission spent the four years leading up to this month’s election compiling the most information Utah voters have ever had on judges facing retention.

In the end, however, it appeared to matter little.

Each of the 26 judges on the ballot was retained with about 80 percent of the vote. And every judge who faced election six years ago came within 2 percentage points of the 2006 tally.

“There was two times the [voter] turnout and yet the same margins held across the board,” Utah Court Administrator Daniel Becker told members of the Utah Judicial
Council this week. “After all the expense and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the results were about the same.” Joanne Slotnik, executive director of the evaluation commission (JPEC), said she knows why. “The bottom line is not a whole lot of people saw the information we worked so hard to put out,” Slotnik said.

For the entire article see: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55318447-78/judges-information-utah-pamphlet.html.csp