February 28, 2005
Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice voter education website makes progress and commits to expanding its efforts for 2006

For the 2004 judicial retention elections, the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice produced a website (www.voteforjudges.org) and education campaign aimed at providing information for voters in the Cook County judicial elections. Voters found a compilation of information from a variety of sources about the qualifications of the judges and judicial candidates.

Research conducted nationally and in Cook County has illustrated that responsible voters say they want easy access to information about judicial elections in general and the judicial candidates in particular. With a click of a button, voteforjudges.org provided all judicial evaluations and recommendations in usable, understandable and downloadable form. Overall, voteforjudges.org:

• Distributed more than 22,000 tri-fold voteforjudges.org brochures in English and Spanish.
   
• Aired public service announcements with more than 20 radio stations in the Chicago-land area.
   
• Received support from University of Chicago Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, Center for Neighborhood Technology, Justice at Stake, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, North Beverly Civic Association and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
   
• In total, the website received 988,108 hits and 101,449 requests for downloadable pages.
   
• On November 1 and 2 alone, voteforjudges.org had 631,773 hits and 64,769 pages were downloaded.

Voteforjudges.org campaign was non-partisan and did not endorse any particular candidate. However, two judges seeking retention were found Not Recommended for retention by every bar group and voters surfing our website would have concluded that these two judges should not be retained. The Union League Club, the Committee to Elect Qualified Judges, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and other groups decided to use this information in an effort to educate voters about these judges. Consequently, we looked at voting data to determine how these judges fared as a indicator of whether the campaign was influential.

• The campaign focused on 18 precincts in Chicago and 3 precincts in Evanston Township and Niles Township in the suburbs.
   
• In Chicago in the aggregate, Dorothy Jones and Susan McDunn received 72% and 69% yes votes respectively. Among the 18 precincts where we had sample ballots being distributed, Jones received less than the necessary 60% yes votes in one-third of the precincts and McDunn received less than the necessary 60% in nearly half of the precincts.
   
• In Evanston Township, where voteforjudges.org had concentrated its efforts to get voters to educate themselves about judges, Jones and McDunn received 54% and 53% yes votes respectively. In two of the Evanston Township precincts where we distributed sample ballots, the percentages for Jones and McDunn declined further -- for Jones in the 7th precinct: 49% and in the 2nd precinct: 52%; for McDunn in the 7th precinct: 48% and in the 2nd precinct: 46%.

Voters will respond and seek out available information on judicial elections. The efforts, however, were not enough to counter the extensive campaigns by the political parties and the judges themselves. Voteforjudges.org is committed to expanding the voter education efforts for the judicial elections in 2006. This election cycle has illustrated that judicial elections can be positively and effectively influenced by educated voters.

Voteforjudges.org will in 2006 work to deliver non-partisan information about both judicial candidates in the primary election and about judges seeking retention in the November general election.