by Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder, [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]
September 23, 2026
Do you want to know what political party the judge who validates your last will and testament belongs to?
A measure up for a vote on the November ballot would require all Georgia probate judges, who oversee matters like wills, estates and conservatorships, to be elected in nonpartisan elections, and a bipartisan group of more than 60 Georgia leaders are rooting it on.
The proponents made their case in an open letter signed by leaders of all political stripes, including former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes and former Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, as well as mayors, county commissioners and religious and civic leaders from across the spectrum.
“At a time when public trust in institutions is increasingly fragile, Georgia has an opportunity to strengthen confidence in our judiciary by emphasizing neutrality, fairness, and independence,” the letter reads. “Judges should answer to the law and the Constitution — not to partisan political pressure.”
The measure passed unanimously in the state Senate and 147-20 in the state House, with the small number of dissenters coming from members of both parties.
One of the nay voters, Woodstock Republican state Rep. Charlice Byrd, said making races nonpartisan takes information away from voters and makes for less informed results.
“It makes my skin go crawling and my hair stand up because I believe that we need to know as individuals where you stand on issues,” she said.
Nearly all of Georgia’s approximately 1,600 judges are elected in nonpartisan races, including state Supreme Court justices. The only exceptions are 53 of the state’s 159 county probate judges who run on a Republican or Democratic ticket. The majority of counties have made probate judge races nonpartisan through local legislation.
Byrd said if the remaining 53 counties want nonpartisan probate judge races, they should do the same thing.
The association that lobbies for county governments at the state Capitol is neutral on the ballot question.
Downballot candidates like judges may benefit from being affiliated with a party that is dominant in their county because other information about those candidates is often limited.
But some probate judges say the job is about impartially administering laws dealing with document disputes and not hot-button social issues like abortion or border security. They say being associated with a political party can put them in awkward positions and cause people from the other side to second guess the fairness of their rulings.
A law instituting nonpartisan elections for magistrate judges, who deal with issues like warrants, small civil claims and preliminary hearings, went into effect last July.
Questions of political neutrality on the state’s highest court have surfaced in recent nonpartisan elections. In 2024, the Judicial Qualifications Commission sent a letter to attorney John Barrow chastising him for pledging to protect abortion rights in his failed run for the Supreme Court arguing that his statements violated rules of impartiality.
Earlier this year, the same panel said two Democratic Party-aligned candidates for the Supreme Court, former state Sen. Jen Jordan and attorney Miracle Rankin, violated Georgia’s Code of Judicial Conduct for endorsing each other and saying they would restore abortion rights in the state.
All but one of the state’s nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican governors.
Chief Justice Nels Peterson has supported making judicial races nonpartisan, including during a major speech before a joint session of the General Assembly in February.
“Judges must be impartial, and we also must conduct ourselves in such a way as to be perceived as being impartial,” he said. “Requiring any of us to publicly and formally align ourselves with a political party can only undermine the public’s perception of the judiciary as impartial.”
A separate measure making district attorneys nonpartisan but only in five Democratic metro Atlanta counties is being challenged in court after being signed into law earlier this year.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jill Nolin for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.