The Longest Election: Dr. Klumpp analyzes the Cook County judicial retention results

by Albert J. Klumpp

Two years ago Cook County experienced an election that was different from any other in its 54-year history of retention voting. Last month’s election, while not a carbon copy of 2018’s, had many of the same basic characteristics and indicates that what happened in 2018 was more than just a flash in the pan.

Concern over police misconduct and wrongful convictions continued to drive higher-than-normal levels of attention to the retention part of the ballot. Voter participation on retention judges was 70.02%, roughly equal to that of 2018 but reaching just above 70% for the first time ever.

Most of the past fluctuations in participation can be tied to changes in voting systems and ballot designs. 2018 and 2020 together are only the second instance of participation changes attributable to a substantive public policy matter (the other being the Operation Greylord investigation of the 1980s). Evidence of this is that nearly all of the 2018-2020 increase is attributable to Chicago voters and not suburban voters. Historically a higher proportion of city voters has skipped the retention part of the ballot compared to suburban voters, but in 2018 and this year, city participation rose to nearly equal suburban participation.

The base approval rate for the entire set of judges—that is, the rate for a judge with no name-cue advantages or informational disadvantages--was 75.3 percent, a historically typical figure and essentially unchanged from 2018’s 75.4 percent. Female judges had their best election ever, with a 3.5 point advantage relative to male judges. Historically their advantage had been 1.5 to 2 percentage points but began creeping upwards more recently, jumping to 3.4 points two years ago.

On the other hand, there was no significant racial/ethnic vote. Typically there is a small but detectable bump for having a recognizably Irish, African-American (based on US Census data) or Hispanic surname. But while 2018 saw one- to two-point bumps in all three categories, nothing of the sort was detectable this year. Certain wards and townships showed expected preferences--Irish names in the 19th Ward; Hispanic in Cicero Township; African-American on the South Side—but in the overall countywide numbers there was no meaningful advantage.

The most important characteristic of the 2018 election was the substantial use of voter information. Nearly one-third of the 2018 retention electorate (32.7%) voted based on some source of information—a newspaper or bar association, a social media guide, or one of the political or community campaigns against Matthew Coghlan. This year, despite the larger turnout typical of a presidential election, information use held relatively steady at 31.9%. Both of these elections eclipsed the previous high of 22.0% in 1988.

While the 2018 and 2020 figures are similar, their composition differs. One difference is a decrease in the county Democratic party’s influence. In 2018 roughly seven percent of the electorate followed the party’s instructions to support all judges except Coghlan. This year its influence was less than three percent, albeit with a larger electorate. The wards and townships where the party’s influence was greatest were largely the same in both elections, but the overall effect was lower throughout. Negative publicity over the Michael Toomin controversy undoubtedly hurt the party, but another factor may have been a decrease in the overall number and timing of party mailers (still looking for information to confirm or refute this).

In contrast, there was an increase in the impact of social media. The “Girl I Guess” voter guide that emerged in 2018 remained influential this year, with an estimated 4.2 percent effect (versus estimated 3.4 percent in 2018, likely but not provably higher). In addition, a bare-bones “Chicago Voter Cheat Sheet” prepared by two city political activists was statistically detectable in every city ward except the 41st, and had an overall impact of roughly 2.6 percent countywide. Together the two guides had a larger impact than any single bar association or newspaper.

As for bar associations, the ISBA’s ratings emerged in 2018 and 2020 to become an influential information source, worth roughly 3.5 percentage points in both elections. More media outlets have reported ISBA ratings in recent years and their reporting is having an effect. For instance, the suburban Daily Herald newspapers, which in the past had tended to report CCL or Alliance ratings in their pre-election coverage, instead emphasized ISBA ratings in both 2018 and 2020. In all of the suburban townships where the Herald newspapers circulate, ISBA ratings this year showed an influence of between six and eight percentage points.

Ratings from the CBA and Chicago Tribune measured in the 5-6 point range, as they did in 2018. There also was evidence, as in 2018, of Alliance ratings having a small but detectable influence where little or none besides the CCL’s ratings could be detected in prior years. This is difficult to pin down precisely because of the number and similarity of the ratings among all of the bar associations, but overall the numbers do suggest, as they did two years ago, that the Internet and mobile devices are being used by increasing numbers of voters to access information from more different sources than in the past.

Finally, the usual bit of fine print: the statistical estimates reported here are just that—estimates—and have margins of error, but all are considered highly statistically significant.

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Albert J. Klumpp has been a generous and frequent contributor to FWIW over the years. A research analyst with a public policy PhD, Klumpp is the author of several scholarly works analyzing judicial elections including, most recently, "Evaluating Judicial Merit Selection," in the November 2020 issue of Arizona Attorney (the link will take you the magazine website; you'll have to click around a bit to access the article). Closer to home, Klumpp's recent publications include "Campaign Spending in Cook County Judicial Elections," CBA Record, Nov.-Dec. 2019 (p. 30)