[thawaway1837]

The lack of legal training is exactly the issue at hand.

Juror selection isn’t about qualifications. However, it does give both sides an opportunity to eliminate vested or deeply unqualified interests that may be biased against them. With a judge you have no such option.

[slowmovintarget]

Except for appeal. If a judge gets overturned enough on appeal, they can rightly be said to be unreliable. Which means, if they're elected to the position, their opponent can site how many times they got overturned as a legitimate reason to think they're bad at their job.

All of this functions well... unless the electorate is uneducated or misled, and apathetic. That's the real problem in this case. People are winning popularity contests, because the only thing middle and high school taught most of the electorate was that you should be popular.

It isn't true everywhere. Reputation and reputation systems can and do function well. But they require a functional press, and an interested public.