From: The 'Ville Voice 

The Louisville Bar Association, perhaps recognizing that regular citizens have little idea about the competence of candidates for local judgeships, regularly conducts polls of its members prior to elections. For voters who want to be informed about judges’ races, the opinions of attorneys about their colleagues is an important consideration.

The Bar did a survey of its 4,000 members this month regarding candidates for two open District Court Judge seats. Last March, its survey included the Supreme Court candidates, a Circuit Court race and a District Court race. There were 744 ballots cast in March, 442 in September. Candidates must select one choice for each candidate — Highly Qualified, Qualified, Unqualified, Do Not Know Candidate or Not Rated.

We’ll get the individual races in a second. First, the overall results show that attorneys are tight about handing out “Highly Qualified rankings: Of the 12 candidates, only 3 (Supreme Court candidates Jim Shake and Lisabeth Hughes Abramson, and District Court Dv. 2’s Ann Bailey Smith) got that designation from more than 1 in 3 voters.

On the other side, controversial District Court candidate Katie King got the highest percentage (18.1) of votes in the “Unqualified” category.

Based on the surveys, the race for Supreme Court is pretty close. Both Shake and Abramson are considered Highly Qualified and are well-known. Smith is considered a stronger candidate than John Vandertoll by the attorneys, and David Bowles is the favorite in the 5th Division. Attorneys overwhelmingly favor David Holton over King in the 16th. In the Circuit Court race, Charlie Cunningham is favored slightly over W. Douglas Kemper.

Here’s a link to the full results. Take a look, and make an informed decision in the judge’s races in November.

-Original Article-