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  • 2016 local judicial elections‎
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    California local trial court judicial elections, 2016

    From Ballotpedia - Reading time: 14 min
    California held general elections for local judicial offices on November 8, 2016. There was a primary on June 7, 2016. The filing deadline for candidates who wished to run in this election was March 31, 2016. A total of 497 seats were up for election.

    Contested races appeared on the primary ballot on June 7, 2016. Any candidate winning a majority of the vote in the primary automatically won the general election. If no candidate won a majority, the top two candidates advanced to the general election. Unopposed candidates did not appear on the ballot and were automatically reelected following the November 8 election.

    Local judicial races in California in 2016 overwhelmingly were uncontested and overwhelmingly featured an incumbent candidate. Only 22 out of 497 seats held a race with more than one candidate and only 58 out of 497 candidates were challengers.

    For information on 2016 state appellate court and supreme court elections in California, click here.

    Elections[edit]

    Contested general elections[edit]

    Trial-Courts-Ballotpedia.png

    2016 Local Judicial Elections
    View judicial elections by state:
    Elections Information
    Election dates • State judicial elections
    Poll opening and closing times


    Alameda County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 1[edit]

    ☑ Scott Jackson
    ☐ Barbara Thomas

    Kern County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 34[edit]

    Judge Woodward resigned from office in mid-October 2016 in order to apply for a position with the Office of Inspector General in Bakersfield. His name still appeared on the ballot, but his challenger Tiffany Organ-Bowles defeated him in the general election.[1]

    ☐ Cory Woodward (i)
    ☑ Tiffany Organ-Bowles

    Los Angeles County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 11[edit]

    ☑ Debra Archuleta
    ☐ Steven P. Schreiner

    Office 42[edit]

    ☑ Efrain Matthew Aceves
    ☐ Alicia Molina

    Office 84[edit]

    ☐ Javier Perez
    ☑ Susan Jung Townsend

    Office 158[edit]

    ☐ David Berger
    ☑ Kim Nguyen

    Marin County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 2[edit]

    ☐ Michael Coffino
    ☑ Sheila Lichtblau

    San Bernardino County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 24[edit]

    ☐ Susan Slater
    ☑ Denise Trager Dvorak

    San Francisco County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 7[edit]

    ☐ Paul Henderson
    ☑ Victor Hwang

    Contested primaries[edit]

    Alameda County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 1[edit]

    RunoffArrow.jpg Scott Jackson
    ☐ David Lim
    RunoffArrow.jpg Barbara Thomas

    Office 2[edit]

    ☑ Jennifer Madden
    ☐ Jonathan Van Ee

    El Dorado County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 2[edit]

    ☑ Nelson Keith Brooks (i)
    ☐ Roland Tiemann

    Kern County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 20[edit]

    ☐ W. Steven Shayer
    ☑ David Wolf

    Office 34[edit]

    RunoffArrow.jpg Tiffany Organ-Bowles
    RunoffArrow.jpg Cory Woodward (i)
    ☐ J. Arturo Revelo

    Marin County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 2[edit]

    ☐ Otis Bruce
    RunoffArrow.jpg Michael Coffino
    ☐ Beth Jordan
    RunoffArrow.jpg Sheila Lichtblau
    ☐ Renee Marguerite Marcelle
    ☐ Thomas McCallister
    ☐ Nancy McCarthy
    ☐ Nicole Pantaleo
    ☐ David Shane

    Mendocino County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 5[edit]

    ☑ Keith Faulder
    ☐ Patrick Pekin

    Orange County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 3[edit]

    ☐ Andrew M. Stein
    ☑ Megan Wagner
    ☐ Wayne Philips

    Office 40[edit]

    ☑ Larry Yellin
    ☐ Thuy Pham

    Office 48[edit]

    ☑ Scott A. Steiner (i)
    ☐ Karen Lee Schatzle

    Office 49[edit]

    ☑ Mike Murray
    ☐ Thomas E. Martin

    San Bernardino County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 24[edit]

    RunoffArrow.jpg Susan Slater
    ☐ Soheila Azizi
    RunoffArrow.jpg Denise Trager Dvorak
    ☐ Dieter Carlos Dammeier

    San Diego County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 25[edit]

    ☑ James Mangione (i)
    ☐ Paul Ware

    Office 38[edit]

    ☑ Keri G. Katz (i)
    ☐ Carla Keehn

    San Francisco County Superior Court[edit]

    Office 7[edit]

    RunoffArrow.jpg Paul Henderson
    RunoffArrow.jpg Victor Hwang
    ☐ Sigrid Irias

    Trinity County Superior Court[edit]

    ☑ Michael B. Harper (i)
    ☐ James Underwood

    Uncontested elections[edit]

    Unopposed candidates are automatically elected without appearing on the ballot.

    Alameda County Superior Court[edit]

    Alpine County Superior Court[edit]

    Butte County Superior Court[edit]

    Colusa County Superior Court[edit]

    El Dorado County Superior Court[edit]

    Fresno County Superior Court[edit]

    Glenn County Superior Court[edit]

    Humboldt County Superior Court[edit]

    Inyo County Superior Court[edit]

    Kern County Superior Court[edit]

    Los Angeles County Superior Court[edit]

    Madera County Superior Court[edit]

    Marin County Superior Court[edit]

    Mendocino County Superior Court[edit]

    Merced County Superior Court[edit]

    Modoc County Superior Court[edit]

    Mono County Superior Court[edit]

    Monterey County Superior Court[edit]

    Napa County Superior Court[edit]

    Nevada County Superior Court[edit]

    Placer County Superior Court[edit]

    Riverside County Superior Court[edit]

    Sacramento County Superior Court[edit]

    San Diego County Superior Court[edit]

    San Francisco County Superior Court[edit]

    San Luis Obispo County Superior Court[edit]

    San Mateo County Superior Court[edit]

    Santa Barbara County Superior Court[edit]

    Santa Clara County Superior Court[edit]

    Santa Cruz County Superior Court[edit]

    Shasta County Superior Court[edit]

    Sierra County Superior Court[edit]

    Solano County Superior Court[edit]

    Sonoma County Superior Court[edit]

    Stanislaus County Superior Court[edit]

    Tehama County Superior Court[edit]

    Tulare County Superior Court[edit]

    Ventura County Superior Court[edit]

    Yolo County Superior Court[edit]

    Yuba County Superior Court[edit]

    Analysis[edit]

    Of the 497 seats up for election, only 22 held races that featured more than one candidate. Since uncontested races do not appear on the ballot in California and unopposed candidates are elected automatically, only 4.4 percent of judicial races occurring in 2016 made it to the ballot.

    Of 541 candidates running for judicial seats in California, 475 were incumbents and only 57 were challengers. 97 percent of races featured an incumbent candidate.

    Election rules[edit]

    Primary election[edit]

    Only candidates for the superior courts compete in primary elections.

    • If a superior court judge runs unopposed for re-election, his or her name does not appear on the ballot and he or she is automatically re-elected following the general election.[2][3]
    • If a candidate receives a majority of the vote in the primary, that candidate automatically wins the general election as well. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the primary, the top two compete in the November general election.[4]
    • Write-in candidates may file to run against an incumbent within 10 days after the filing deadline passes, if they are able to secure enough signatures (between 100 and 600, depending on the number of registered voters in the county). In that case, the incumbent would appear on the general election ballot along with an option to vote for a write-in candidate.[3]

    General election[edit]

    • Superior court candidates that advanced from the primary election compete in the general election.
    • Superior court incumbents facing competition from write-in candidates appear on the ballot.[3][4]

    Selection method[edit]

    See also: Nonpartisan election

    The 1,535 judges of the California Superior Courts compete in nonpartisan races in even-numbered years. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the June primary election, he or she is declared the winner; if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the top two candidates is held during the November general election.[5][6][7][8]

    If an incumbent judge is running unopposed in an election, his or her name does not appear on the ballot. The judge is automatically re-elected following the general election.[5]

    The chief judge of any given superior court is selected by peer vote of the court's members. He or she serves in that capacity for one or two years, depending on the county.[5]

    Qualifications
    Candidates are required to have 10 years of experience as a law practitioner or as a judge of a court of record.[5]

    Recent news[edit]

    The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms California judicial election. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

    California local trial court judicial elections, 2016 - Google News

    See also[edit]

    External links[edit]

    Footnotes[edit]

    1. ↑ Kern Golden Empire.com, "Race for county judge gets a bit complicated," October 11, 2016
    2. ↑ Los Angeles Times, "Safeguarding California's judicial election process," August 21, 2011
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 California Elections Code, "Section 8203," accessed April 22, 2014
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 California Elections Code, "Section 8140-8150," accessed April 22, 2014
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: California," archived October 2, 2014
    6. ↑ Los Angeles Times, "Safeguarding California's judicial election process," August 21, 2011
    7. ↑ California Elections Code, "Section 8203," accessed May 21, 2014
    8. ↑ California Elections Code, "Section 8140-8150," accessed May 21, 2014

    California courts

    Federal courts:

    Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Central District of California, Eastern District of California, Northern District of California, Southern District of California • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Central District of California, Eastern District of California, Northern District of California, Southern District of California

    State courts:

    California Supreme Court • California Courts of Appeal • California Superior Courts

    State resources:

    Courts in California • California judicial elections • Judicial selection in California

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    2016 Elections for State and Local Courts
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