One thing I'll add, this is also a symptom of the death of local journalism.
Even for decently populated areas, there's simply very little access to journalism covering things like local candidates. All news has become national. Local news broadcasts have pretty much died, all purchased by the sinclair broadcasting group.
Just try and get information on someone running for a city level offices. It's hard enough for officials with public meetings. But judges?
I have found that the League of Woman Voters often provides voter guides where you can read about every local candidate. Their positions, their website, answers to questions, and so on.
For judges in California, that generally includes a review about how well qualified they are.
I've found that very helpful in past elections for making decisions on local candidates. Which are the ones where my vote is most likely to make a difference. But which would otherwise be impossible for me to inform myself on.
Death of local news makes it worse, but this has always been an issue. Like literally since before the revolutionary war type ‘always’, and certainly long before that too.
Means of control get hijacked by bad actors until they screw up bad enough they can’t be ignored, to be replaced by… someone. Who is not such an obvious bad actor. Sometimes they’re even good! For awhile, anyway.
Even for decently populated areas, there's simply very little access to journalism covering things like local candidates. All news has become national. Local news broadcasts have pretty much died, all purchased by the sinclair broadcasting group.
Just try and get information on someone running for a city level offices. It's hard enough for officials with public meetings. But judges?