What role did 'low information' voters play in this election?

Updated November 8, 2018 to correct factual error.

It's time to start poking through the ashes of the 2018 campaign.

What can we learn? What lessons may be applicable in future campaigns?

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence out there suggesting that some of this year's voters were... less than well informed about... oh, everything.

Open Twitter.

See some guy in Lakeview opine that, because there is a long line at the polling place at the last possible hour to vote early, the system is rigged and designed to disenfranchise citizens.

Close Twitter.

— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) November 6, 2018

Criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield saw a lot of certitude based on attitude out there in Social Media Land.

If you don't know who your congressional representative and senators are, who's running for state office and what they stand for, yet are certain how you're going to vote, maybe you should be less certain of your political acumen?

— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) November 5, 2018

But, OK, you say, that's Twitter. Donald Trump's playpen. Take Twitter seriously? That way lies madness, you say.

And, if you're a regular FWIW reader, you are very likely a well-informed voter. You may not even know any low information voters.

(Notice -- I'm not using any more pejorative terms here. I could. But I am sick and tired of all the sanctimonious claptrap about being civil and taking the high road -- just as soon as the worst offender on the Other Side stops first. It's coming on Christmas, as Joni Mitchell sang, and one of the songs of the season you will soon hear in heavy rotation is "Let There Be Peace on Earth." Well, as the song says, let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.)

Anyway, you are inclined to dismiss anecdotal evidence as wholly unreliable.

OK.

Let me direct your attention to Exhibit A -- the more than 56,000 in Illinois' 3rd Congressional District who voted for an actual Illinois Nazi. Not Henry Gibson from The Blues Brothers (pictured at right) but a genuine, self-proclaimed Illinois Nazi.

Are there really 56,350 Nazi sympathizers in this mostly Southwest suburban district? (There are 203 Chicago precincts in this district as well.)

Were there 56,350 pranksters out there, just funnin' at the polling place?

Or were there, perhaps, a lot of folks who voted for the Illinois Nazi without having the first clue about what they were doing?

Let me show you now what I'm calling Exhibit B, the race for the Lawrence vacancy in the far northwest suburban 13th Judicial Subcircuit.

For the first time ever -- Dr. Klumpp will correct me if I'm wrong about this -- Democrats won all three vacancies.

There is considerable overlap between the 13th Subcircuit and the northernmost chunk of the reverse comma-shaped 6th Congressional District. If there was a Blue Wave anywhere last night it was in suburban areas -- not just in the Chicago area, but around many major cities across the country. And last night, in the 6th District race, Democrat Sean Casten unseated longtime Republican Congressman Peter Roskam.

The 6th Congressional District was a district, remember, that was drawn to hem in as many Republicans as possible.

In most years, Democrats don't even bother fielding judicial candidates in the 13th.

This year, however, the Democrats had two good candidates, former Judge Ketki "Kay" Steffen and current Judge Samuel J. Betar III.

And to be fair, these two candidates did do significantly better than the Democrat running for the Lawrence vacancy in the 13th. Judge Betar won his race by 8,572 votes. Steffen won hers by 11,133.

But Democrat Shannon P. O'Malley -- a candidate who began his legal career as Philip Spiwak -- who skipped assessment by each and every bar association -- who was called out by the Illinois Civil Justice League and Injustice Watch -- also won his race for the aforementioned Lawrence vacancy. By 2,278 votes. Not a landslide, certainly, but indisputable.

This is not to say that Judge O'Malley (or Judge Spiwak, if he resumes his former handle) will not provide good and useful service to the citizens of County Cook. Six years hence, at retention time, he may well enjoy the support of each and every bar group. There was at least one candidate on this year's retention ballot who eschewed bar evaluations in 2012 -- but who was unanimously rated qualified this time around.

But... I respectfully submit that O'Malley was the fortunate beneficiary of voters who came out specifically, and only, for Casten. Many of his votes may have come from low-information voters -- that is to say, voters who did not seek out available information about judicial candidates. Maybe they were swayed by the sonorous, and androgynous, appellation. Maybe they merely hewed to the party line.

The good news here is that this same evidence can also be interpreted to show that many of these judicial voters in the 13th did study up on the ballot and did know what they were doing in judicial races. That's why Steffen and Betar won by significantly more than O'Malley. But without the surge for Casten, Republicans might have swept all these races, as they always had in the past.

So the broader lesson is clear: Judicial candidates are at the mercy of high-profile races further up the ballot. Judicial candidates can't turn out large numbers at the polling place, but they may be buoyed up -- or buried -- by turnout beyond their control. Perhaps it was ever thus. Turnout is the key. And I hope to look at turnout in some key Cook County races in another post.