A few weeks ago former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told a crowd Montana should scrap its method of selecting judges through elections, saying the process could politically motivate judges.

Beth Baker told KTVM she thinks elections make judges accountable to the people who elected them and who they serve.

Baker said she thinks overall a judge’s job is to be accountable and fair in their decision making. She is not worried about political contributions. Baker said political contributions to a campaign wouldn’t weigh in on how she would serve as a judge.

Candidate Nels Swandal agrees. Swandal said he would prefer not to have to take anyone’s choice away in terms of voting.

Swandal said he thinks the position should be kept on the ballot, and that if another political official appointed a judge, it could lead to “elitists” unfairly getting a seat on the bench.

Political Science Professor at Montana State University, David Parker thinks the election process is an overall bad idea.

Parker said elections lead to many negative consequences for choosing someone to serve on the high court.

Mostly Parker said, people usually don’t have that much information about judicial candidates. Even more, he said it’s difficult to find out information about a candidate’s past judicial history, including trials, number of rulings and other information.

Parker points in particular to Montana’s system of unpartisan judicial elections. Judicial candidates, he said don’t have as much information in the public as do Congressional candidates, or others who may campaign.

He said many people end up picking a name on the ballot without really knowing anything about them. Parker said he would prefer to see an appointment process for choosing judges.

Montana is not the only state who uses the election process, however. Parker said the method is less common in the eastern part of the country, but becomes more common throughout the Midwest and West.

Parker said the three main deciding methods include elections, appointments and some sort of combination of the two.