NC Poll: Voters Have Difficult Time Judging Judges

Voters discouraged from voting in judicial races

Raleigh, N.C. – Judicial elections held this fall in North Carolina will be hampered by a lack of information on the candidates for judicial office. Information in the form of party affiliation is sometimes the only information available to voters in an election. North Carolina has removed that information by making judicial races “non-partisan.”

Recent polling and election analysis conducted by the Civitas Institute shows the impact party identification has on the likelihood of voters to cast a ballot in statewide judicial elections, and their ability to make an informed decision, in a given election.

Civitas polled the only 2008 race for the North Carolina Supreme Court in July and August. In July when assigning respective party identification to the two candidates, Republican Robert Edmunds and Democrat Suzanne Reynolds, 31% of respondents were not sure of their choice. When the same question was asked in August with no party identification, fully 74% of respondents said they were not sure. When deprived of party identification, three out of four voters were unable to make a selection.

Senate Bill 1054 passed in 2002, made appellate judicial elections non-partisan removing party affiliation from ballots. “This change is a significant reason that a large number of voters are no longer voting in these important judicial elections,” according to Francis De Luca, the Executive Director of the Civitas Institute.

“If the intention of judicial election and campaign finance reform was to reduce the number of people who are voting on judges in North Carolina, then it has worked,” said De Luca.

An analysis of voting in the 2004 election compared to the 2000 election shows that when given less information on the ballot, voters simply choose not to vote on that office. In this case the office was the N.C. Supreme Court, the highest appellate court in North Carolina.

The election cycle in 2000 saw a 3.8% drop-off in participation for the Supreme Court race with the highest votes statewide, compared to votes cast in the Governor’s race. By contrast, in the 2004 N.C. Supreme Court races without party identification on the ballot, the Supreme Court race with the greatest number of votes was subject to a 22.6% drop off in voter participation when compared to the number of votes cast in the Presidential election.

2000 President – 2,911,262 votes cast	2000 Governor – 2,942,062 votes cast
2000 Supreme Court – 2,828,859	2000 Supreme Court – 2,828,859
Difference – 82,403 or 2.8%	Difference – 113,203 or 3.8%

2004 President – 3,501,007 votes cast	2004 Governor – 3,398,470 votes cast
2004 Supreme Court – 2,710,260	2004 Supreme Court – 2,710,260
Difference – 790,747 or 22.6%	Difference – 688,210 or 20.3%

“Our polling results coupled with the comparison of the previous elections illustrate the value of party identification in providing information for voters about these important offices. Voter participation is absolutely necessary if citizens are to have faith in their government,” noted De Luca. “If these races continue to be ‘non-partisan,’ many voters will not participate and judges will be elected who were not chosen by a majority of the voters who showed up to vote,” concluded De Luca.

The Civitas Institute will release the complete results of the August DecisionMaker Poll on Wednesday, August 27th during their monthly poll luncheon held at the Clarion Hotel in downtown Raleigh.

The August survey of 600 registered voters was conducted Aug 14-17, and the July survey of 600 registered voters was conducted July 14-17 by Tel Opinion Research of Alexandria, Virginia. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this survey voters interviewed had to have voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general election or have registered since 2006. Voters were interviewed using live callers.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95% of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within ±4.2% of the “True Values.” “True Values” refer to the results obtained if were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2006.

From July 2008:
IF THE ELECTION FOR NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT WERE HELD TODAY, WOULD YOU BE VOTING FOR:

	#	%
Rep Robert H. Edmunds, Jr.	198	33
Democrat Suzanne Reynolds	215	36
Not Sure	182	31
Refused	4
TOTAL	600

From August 2008:
IF THE ELECTION FOR NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT WERE HELD TODAY, WOULD YOU BE VOTING FOR:

	#	%
Robert [Bob] Edmunds	73	12
Suzanne Reynolds	82	14
Not Sure	438	74
Refused	7
TOTAL	600

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