Voting for judges - where to get information

If your ballot is still blank for the judicial races, go to the website Voting For Judges. A nonpartisan, impartial source of information, it was created in 2006 by a Kitsap attorney who was frustrated at the lack of information available for judicial candidates and the way that people made their decisions or did not vote.

The website, which has won numerous awards, is organized in an easy to use format and includes a filter to give you information for your judicial races.

All races, primary and general, are included, with notes for the election oddities. See Evan Smith's previous column on this subject.

There are tabs on the main page which lead you to contests at each judicial level for the whole state. The Ratings and Endorsements tab includes the King County Bar Association, the Municipal League, the Joint Asian Judicial Evaluation Committee, and the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.

Twelve major newspaper endorsements are included, from Walla Walla, to Vancouver, to Everett. The viewpoint is always different outside of Puget Sound. Even when they come to the same conclusions as the urban areas, the reasoning is usually different.

The site contains archived information from the races in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.