In addition, there will be a week-long arts festival, evening parties, entertainment, and more to make this an unforgettable celebration! The seventh quadrennial Gay Games Sports and Cultural Festival will feature 12,000 participants from over 70 countries, competing in 30 sports. If you follow art and architecture trends, you know that Chicago ’s award winning Millennium Park recently opened, receiving worldwide praise.Īnd if you’re gay, you know that this summer Chicago is hosting the Gay Games, July 15-22, 2006. If you are a sports fan, you know that the Chicago White Sox just won the World Series. Results in the primary suggest they are taking those evaluations seriously.If Chicago has been on your mind lately, there are a number of reasons why. Website traffic clearly shows voters engaged with the evaluations of judicial candidates prior to casting their ballots. No other winner was found not recommended or not qualified by more than 3 of 12 bar associations. One candidate in an uncontested race won with unanimous ratings of not recommended or not qualified and a single candidate in a contested race won with a majority of not recommended or not qualified. This is in contrast to prior years where three-quarters or more of sitting judges have won their primary races.įourteen candidates across all races had unanimous ratings of not recommended or not qualified. 16 of them-just about half-lost their primary races. Two Republican candidates were uncontested in the primary-one in the 13 th and one in the 15 th subcircuit-although both those races had Democratic candidates in the primary.ģ1 candidates in the primary were sitting judges, having been temporarily appointed to vacancies by the Illinois Supreme Court. Overall, five Democratic candidates were uncontested-two of those countywide and three 13 th subcircuit races. There were no Republican candidates for the countywide seats, although each of those races had multiple Democratic candidates. There were 39 total races-10 vacant countywide seats and 29 subcircuit judgeships. Today, the website is sponsored by the Committee to Elect Qualified Judges, a political action committee dedicated to informed judicial voting. Women’s Bar Association of Illinois (WBAI)Ĭhicago Appleseed began more than a decade ago in an effort to educate voters about the judicial elections.Puerto Rican Bar Association of Illinois (PRBA).Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago (LAGBAC).Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois (HLAI).
Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Chicago Area (AABA).The Alliance of Bar Associations is comprised of: also compiles information describing judicial elections, where to go for more information, and media accounts of those running for judge or judges seeking retention. collects the evaluations and recommendations of the Alliance of Bar Associations, comprised of 11 associations, the Chicago Bar Association, as well as the endorsements of the Chicago Tribune. It’s difficult for voters to collect all the information they need to cast informed ballots and we’re honored that they turn to.
It’s great to see the resource getting such widespread use. The evaluations collected by Vote for Judges were aggregated through a number of ballot reference websites, like Ballot Ready. Before the election, Vote for Judges received about 55,000 unique visitors with about 100,000 viewed/downloaded pages.