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On August 4, Kansas voters will decide whether to replace the state’s longstanding merit selection system for Supreme Court justices with direct elections. Republicans want voters to believe the proposed constitutional amendment is just about transparency and giving the public more power over who sits on the state’s highest court, but the debate in Kansas is also part of a broader Republican push to inject more partisanship into state judicial elections. But the differences in where they want partisan elections and where they do not give the game away.

In states across the country — or red states anyway — Republicans have been pushing direct judicial elections as an alternative to merit selection mechanisms and nonpartisan elections, saying that voters deserve as much information as possible. The sentiment is fair enough, but if it were in good faith, one might expect it to apply just as well to district attorney and other local elections. A recent law in Georgia illustrates the actual logic behind these efforts.

In red states, partisan judicial elections tend to advantage Republican candidates by attaching the party label directly to the ballot. Merit selection can produce a more politically diverse judiciary, since judges are chosen through a process that is less directly responsive to the partisan composition of the electorate and can elevate candidates who might struggle to win a partisan election. Nonpartisan elections, particularly for lower-profile positions, can create more opportunities for crossover voting,........

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