and for those other things its plain old popular vote right? I don't know shit about the judges here. I would not want to be responsible to vote on that

 

It depends on your location. State/local rules are determined by the state or locality where you're voting (duh! h: ). In my case, it's just a simple majority yes or no on everything except president/senate/congress.

In all honesty, retaining the judges shouldn't be on the ballot, IMO. They are all appointed based on merit and qualification, but they can be removed by popular vote. The thing is, very few people bother educating themselves on the judges, and they chose yes or no pretty much completely arbitrarily (i.e. I don't like this guy's name). I voted yes (to retain them) across the board because I figure the people responsible for hiring them know more about it than I do.

^^^ That is just how it works in Colorado.