On March 31, the Seventh Circuit held oral argument in Common Cause of Indiana v Individual Members of the Election Commission, 14-3300. The issue is the Indiana law that says for Indianapolis (Marion County), but no other county, the partisan election for trial court judges shall use limiting voting. No political party may run for more than half the seats that are up.
Although in theory independent candidates and the nominees of minor parties can run for these judicial seats, almost always, the only candidates on the general election ballot are Democrats and Republicans. Since neither of those parties can run for more than half the seats, the voters have no real choice. Typically, 16 judges are to be elected, but there are only eight Democrats and eight Republicans on the ballot, so the outcome of the election is a foregone conclusion.
Limited voting exists in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia, but in those places, it exists for government bodies with multiple members, such as city councils or school boards. The Indiana limited voting is different because trial court judges don’t sit together as a multiple-member body. Each judge handles his or her case load as an individual. The voters who challenged the Indiana system argue that voting must be meaningful, and when the typical election has a foregone conclusion, the election is not meaningful. The U.S. District Court in this case had invalidated the system. Here is a link to the oral argument, which lasts 30 minutes. The judges were Michael S. Kanne, a Reagan appointee; Ilana D. Rovner, a Bush Sr. appointee; and U.S. District Court Judge Theresa Springmann, a Bush Jr. appointee from Indiana. Judge Rover dominated the discussion and seems inclined to strike down the system, and to uphold the U.S. District Court decision.
Indianapolis has used limited voting since 2006.
One more attack on the Republican Form of Government in USA Const Art. IV, Sec. 4 — i.e. having minority rule OLIGARCHS electing judges.
Too many MORON lawyers and judges to count in the nearly DEAD U.S.A.
The system described is not what is usually known as “limited voting”, which is a semi-proportional system. In 2006 and 2012 there were 20 judgeships up for election, with 10 Democratic and 10 Republican nominees and each voter able to vote for up to 20, and in 2008 and 2014 there were 16 judgeships with 8 Democrats and 8 Republicans running and each voter able to vote for up to 16 candidates. No independent or third party candidates ran in any of these elections (and an Indianapolis Star story about the lawsuit says that method for judicial elections was first used in 2006).
In a limited voting election with 20 seats to be filled, each voter would only be able to vote for some number of candidates less than 20. Thus there could be a limit of 10 candidates that each voter could vote for, not 10 candidates that each party could nominate. If there actually were limited voting, because Indiana allows straight party voting, parties might be limited in how many candidates they could nominate to the number voters could vote for.
I believe that a system limiting the number of candidates a party could nominate was used in Illinois when they used cumulative voting for their state legislature, with three seats per district but parties not allowed to nominate more than two candidates in a district.