I work within the criminal justice system, and work with law enforcement officers every day. I’ve seen them at their best, at their worst, and I’ve seen various leadership styles within law enforcement communities of all sizes. I’ve seen police through the eyes of a prosecutor, the eyes of a defense attorney and the eyes of a college student working for a police department. I should be extraordinarily well-equipped in making a choice for Washoe County sheriff.

But I’m not. And most other voters aren’t either.

Oh, I can look up their bios, listen to speeches, read their candidate profiles in the local paper, see their many signs around town. In a few cases, there are policy differences, mostly involving gun control, which are only relevant if sheriffs start getting to vote on bills in Carson City. All of them tell me they will protect the public, respect the rights of the accused and will work well with other government agencies, as any large sheriff’s office must. Most of them have spent their lives in law enforcement.

But I can’t tell from any of that what I really want to know. Who is the best leader? Who is the best mentor? Who is the best administrator? Who is the best budget manager? How do they define what “justice” is? The sheriff will set a tone that will resonate with every young deputy making life-changing (or even ending) decisions on the streets — what will that tone be? What is his or her relationship with the district attorney? Will they take inevitable criticism from DAs, defense attorneys, judges, the media or members of the public constructively, or will ego get in the way of the constant process of improvement?

These are the traits that really matter — not partisan affiliation, and not even stated policy positions, for the most part. And those are traits that can only be observed in the field in a way impossible for most citizens to do. Unless voters work within the local criminal justice system in some way, know the candidates personally or they get arrested a lot, those observations are next to impossible to accurately make before casting a ballot.

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We vote for a lot of offices like this. I’ve written before about how silly it is to elect judges, for example. Indeed, one of the problems electing judges and cops have in common is that voters might tend to reward “tough on crime at any price” types over “we’re here to seek justice and follow the letter of the law” types.

At least most people have a general idea of what judges and sheriffs do. But how do you choose a county assessor? Or the state treasurer? Or the controller? I don’t even love that we elect attorneys general or city attorneys.

The response to this is usually some form of, “The People must have a voice — why do you hate democracy, man?!?” Ordinarily, it is pedantically obnoxious to point out we live in a republic rather than a democracy, but the distinction really does matter in this context. We don’t have people vote for every beat cop or state administrative assistant, and for good reason:  most voters aren’t in a position to assess the job performance of these folks, and such a ballot would take days to fill out. Instead, we vote for policy makers who appoint folks to administrative positions. When those administrators are crucial parts of the executive branch of government but are independently elected, we no longer have a single place for the buck to stop. A governor will find it difficult to build a team that way, and far worse, he or she can more easily deflect blame for any given policy failure.

The federal Constitution, especially as originally ratified, was especially stingy with who “We the People” were to vote for. Congressional representatives and presidential electors were pretty much it. The founders were right to be distrustful of the mob rule that is “pure” democracy, and to understand that the day-to-day administrative functions of government would not be well served by such a system. Whatever people’s criticisms of our federal government may be, historically speaking it’s hard to argue that system hasn’t resulted in an amazingly badass and prosperous place to live.

The other objection is, “You could say the voters are under-informed about any election — that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have elections at all.” This is certainly true as far as it goes. Plenty of people vote in the blind. But there is a huge distinction between a lawmaking body such as a legislature or a county commission and various functionaries tasked with implementing their policies.

I may not know perfectly well which legislative candidate will be the most effective in terms of building relationships with other lawmakers. But I can and generally do know where they stand on a wide variety of issues likely to come up during a legislative session or a City Council meeting. Political party affiliation is a good shorthand for where they stand on most things. In a gubernatorial candidate, the types of people they surround themselves with are likely indicative of the sort of bureaucrats they’re likely to appoint or otherwise hire.

A sheriff or a county assessor, on the other hand, doesn’t deal in broad public policy questions. We’ll (hopefully) never see a sheriff who overtly opposes the 4th Amendment, or who otherwise would just declare which laws they intend to enforce and those they won’t. And sheriffs aren’t empowered to change the law anyway. For them, it’s all about their ability to execute what pretty much everyone already agrees are the goals, and about accountability for doing the job well (or not). If we must have electoral input into these jobs, let it be in the form of retention elections only, giving the public the power to “fire” someone whose ineptness is causing harm to the community.  

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In the meantime, I will pester my friends who know someone who knows someone who worked with the county assessor candidate once and says they’re cool. It’s better than just guessing. But as a society, we should begin to question what positions we’re casting votes for. In small frontier towns where everyone knows one another, voting for treasurer or sheriff or justice of the peace made sense. But today?

The mere act of casting a vote does not automatically equal a better or more accountable government. For that, a vote must be cast intelligently. If reasonably well-educated and politically engaged voters aren’t in a position to accurately determine who the best candidate is for a job, then we should rethink whether appointments aren’t a better way to fill it.

Orrin Johnson has been writing and commenting on Nevada and national politics since 2007. He started with an independent blog, First Principles, and was a regular columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from 2015-2016. By day, he is a deputy district attorney for Carson City. His opinions here are his own. Follow him on Twitter @orrinjohnson, or contact him at [email protected].