Elections for state supreme courts have finally begun to receive more of the attention they deserve, but thousands of other judicial elections in the United States—which have an enormous impact on how justice is dispensed—remain largely overlooked.

Many of these races are nearly as important as those for supreme courts, particularly elections for intermediate appellate courts. These bodies, which typically sit between the trial courts where disputes are first heard and the supreme courts that hold the power of final review, collectively hear far more cases than supreme courts. In many proceedings, therefore, those intermediate courts wind up having the last word.