TEXARKANA, Texas - Texas is a state where judges running for elected office must still declare a party affiliation, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green or other.
In other states, like Arkansas, judges run without a partisan designation. That means that voters in Texas may be faced with a conundrum.
When more than one candidate runs for a judicial office, such as Texas district judge, and both run as members of the same party and there is no other-party candidate, the whole contest is decided by voters in the primary.
For example, in March, voters in Bowie and Cass counties will decide who will serve as 5th District judge. Two Republicans are running and no Democrat.
If a voter wishes to vote in the district judge race, they can only vote in the Republican primary. They cannot, for example, vote for a Democrat candidate in a national race, like that for the presidency.
"They have to choose," an official with the Bowie County Elections Office said.
According to an article published in July by the Texas Tribune, Gov. Gregg Abbott signed a law this summer forming a commission to study the issue of partisan judicial elections and the possibility of judicial selection reform in the state.
While the Tribune article credits some big losses for Republican judicial candidates in the mid-terms as impetus for the attention Texas' partisan judicial election system is receiving, there is a bigger reason some believe judges should be selected in nonpartisan elections.
Judges are supposed to make rulings based on the law and precedent-setting cases with opinions that clarify or interpret the law - not on politics.
So for now, voters in Bowie and Cass counties, and many others in Texas, must choose whether they want to weigh in at the primary level in a local judicial race involving only Republican candidates, or if they want to cast a ballot for a Democrat running in a national race.