We investigate the influence of electoral rules and voter information in elections on voting outcomes and the quality of public officials, using new data on state court judge elections in 39 states in the U.S. from 1990 to 2010. We find, first, that voting is very partisan in partisan judicial...

In representative democracies, a variety of rules are employed to select and retain public officials to reflect public preferences over policies. We discuss the literature on selection and retention rules for government officials, focusing on low-information offices. First, we overview the...