CBA Record November-December 2025

Where Have All the Candidates Gone? A Concerning Trend in Cook County Judicial Elections

By Albert J. Klumpp

I llinois, like most U.S. states, uses an elective system to popu late its judiciary. Our preference for an elective system dates all the way back to the state’s 1848 constitution and has grad ually evolved to apply to all levels except for associate judges. Having an elective system, of course, presumes that there will be candidates who seek the offices to be filled. But what if an election is held and no one runs? Or, only slightly less troubling, what if an election is held and there is no competition? As strange as it seems for a county of more than 5 million residents and more than 46,000 registered attorneys, Cook County’s judicial elections have for some time now been trend ing towards that very situation. Fewer and fewer candidates have sought elective judgeships, to the point where recent years have seen more and more vacancies won by a single candidate with no opposition. Just how serious is this problem? Does it exist elsewhere, or is it unique to Cook County? And what might be done to try to improve the numbers? This article explores the situation, quanti tatively and qualitatively.

Cook County Candidates Figure 1 shows the average number of judicial candidates per vacancy (CPV) in Cook County, from the inception of direct elective primaries in 1974 through the present. The figure tells a story, beginning in the earliest years of primaries when the local Republican party was still running judicial candidates. It was rare at that time for a slated candidate of either major party to face opposition, and so the CPV levels stayed very close to two. The stunning defeats of several slated Democrats in the 1984 primary, in the midst of the infamous “Council Wars” period, destroyed the belief that slated Democrats were unbeatable. And as Figure 1 shows, the 1984 results ushered in a new era of com petition that produced a surge in judicial candidates that contin ued through the 1990s. Since then, however, there has been a gradual trend in the opposite direction. Over the past 20 years candidate numbers have declined gradually, reaching an all-time low of 1.53 in 2024. Of the 45 vacancies on the 2024 ballot, only 20 drew more than a single candidate.

22 November/December 2025