If you voted Tuesday, the odds are overwhelming that you were not attracted to the polls by state appellate judicial races.

And if you're like most voters, the first time you encountered the names of the people seeking those extremely important offices was when you saw them on the ballot.You couldn't start a ballot, take a timeout and go home to study the candidates, then come back later to vote. So you went with what the ballot gave you - the candidates' names, party affiliation and home counties.So it is that hundreds of thousands of votes statewide, in every appellate judicial race, are based largely on on-the-spot guesswork. Some voters cast their ballot based on geographic affinity, selecting a judicial candidate from a nearby county - the main reason that appellate court seats go disproportionately to candidates from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Other voters might choose based on party affiliation, ethnic camaraderie or even ballot position, which itself is random.Winners of Tuesday's primaries for a Supreme Court seat, for Superior Court seats and two Commonwealth Court seats will conduct campaigns until the November election. They will raise money to fund advertising, mostly from narrow special interests with specific business in the courts - lawyers, union and business representatives, policy advocacy groups and so on. Following those highly political campaigns, the newly elected judges will assume offices that, by the judiciary's own rules, are supposed to be apolitical.This judicial election, like every statewide judicial election, is a reminder that there is a better way for Pennsylvania to select judges - a merit selection process and gubernatorial appointment with Senate consent.There is no perfect method, no way to remove all politics from judicial selection. But an appointive system with strict rules for qualifications would be a substantial improvement.It's too late for this election cycle. But lawmakers have two years to pass a constitutional amendment making the change so that voters can approve it by referendum before the next round of appellate elections in 2019- The (Scranton) Times-TribuneThe foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.