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Indiana Supreme Court justices easily retain seats in 2024 election

The Indiana Supreme Court chamber.
Brandon Smith
/
IPB News
More than half of the Indiana Supreme Court was on the ballot in 2024 for retention.

The five state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges that were on the ballot in Indiana this year easily kept their seats on the bench in Tuesday’s election.

There was a somewhat organized effort this year to encourage Hoosiers to vote against retaining the three members of the Supreme Court who were on the ballot: Chief Justice Loretta Rush, and Justices Mark Massa and Derek Molter.

All three of them had voted to uphold the state’s near-total abortion ban, prompting the largely online effort to force them out of their seats.

But that effort made little difference, as all three earned at least 68 percent of the vote in favor of their retention.

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No judge or justice has ever lost a retention vote in the 54 years since Indiana’s judicial retention system was put in place.

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.

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Brandon Smith has covered the Statehouse for Indiana Public Broadcasting for more than a decade, spanning three governors and a dozen legislative sessions. He's also the host of Indiana Week in Review, a weekly political and policy discussion program seen and heard across the state. He previously worked at KBIA in Columbia, Missouri and WSPY in Plano, Illinois. His first job in radio was in another state capitol - Jefferson City, Missouri - as a reporter for three stations around the Show-Me State.