Amendment 2: nonpartisan election of probate court judges

What a vote means

A yes vote

All probate court judges are elected without party labels, with terms set by the counties article of the constitution.

The state's own words: A yes vote would require that all probate judges be elected on a nonpartisan basis.

A no vote

Probate judges keep being selected as they were on June 30, 1983, county by county, unless local law changes it.

The state's own words: Current law stays as it is now.

In full

Georgia elects its judges, and since 1983 it has elected most of them without party labels. The constitutional paragraph on judicial selection already says superior and state court judges are “elected on a nonpartisan basis for a term of four years” and that Supreme Court Justices and Court of Appeals Judges are elected the same way for six ^[1]. Probate judges are not in that list. They fall instead into the paragraph's catch-all: “All other judges shall continue to be selected in the manner and for the term they were selected on June 30, 1983, until otherwise provided by local law” ^[1]. This amendment moves probate judges out of the 1983 clause and into the nonpartisan rule, with their terms set by the counties article rather than by a fixed number of years: “All probate judges shall be elected on a nonpartisan basis for terms as provided for in Article IX, Section I, Paragraph III” ^[1]. The official summary states the effect in one line: “This proposal provides that all probate judges shall be elected in nonpartisan elections” ^[1]. A Georgia probate judge is a county officer with a wide docket — wills and estates, guardianships, involuntary commitments, marriage licences, weapons carry licences, and in many counties traffic and misdemeanour cases.

On the ballot

The question as it is printed, word for word.

Amendment 2. Short caption: “Provides for the nonpartisan election of all probate court judges.” Question: “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to require that all probate court judges be elected in nonpartisan elections?” [1][2]

What it would change

• Amends Article VI, Section VII of the Georgia Constitution “in Paragraph I by revising subparagraph (a)” — the judiciary article's paragraph on the selection and term of judges ^[1]
• Adds one sentence to subparagraph (a): “All probate judges shall be elected on a nonpartisan basis for terms as provided for in Article IX, Section I, Paragraph III” ^[1]
• That sentence does two things at once: it imposes nonpartisan election, and it points the term length to Article IX — the counties and municipal corporations article — rather than fixing it in the judiciary article ^[1]
• It removes probate judges from the paragraph's residual clause, which otherwise governs them: “All other judges shall continue to be selected in the manner and for the term they were selected on June 30, 1983, until otherwise provided by local law” ^[1]
• That residual clause stays in force for whatever judges remain inside it, and the local-law escape hatch stays with it ^[1]
• Unchanged: superior and state court judges “elected on a nonpartisan basis for a term of four years”, and Supreme Court Justices and Court of Appeals Judges “on a nonpartisan basis for a term of six years” ^[1]
• Unchanged: “The terms of all judges thus elected shall begin the next January 1 after their election” ^[1]
• What it does not do: it does not change who may run for probate judge, what qualifications are required, how a vacancy is filled, or what a probate court does ^[1]
• The official summary names the exact edit: the proposal “amends Article VI, Section VII, Paragraph I of the Georgia Constitution, relating to selection and term of office of judges, by revising subparagraph (a)” ^[1]

When it would start

• No effective-date clause appears in the resolution. Its second section covers only publication and submission “as provided in Article X, Section I, Paragraph II of the Constitution” ^[1]
• On ratification it becomes constitutional text: “If such amendment shall be ratified as provided in said Paragraph of the Constitution, it shall become a part of the Constitution of this state” ^[1]
• Which election cycle would be the first nonpartisan one for probate judges is not stated in the resolution or the official summary, and the amendment leaves the term length to Article IX, Section I, Paragraph III, whose text was not read here ^[1]

If it passes

• The constitution requires all probate court judges to be elected on a nonpartisan basis, with their terms set by Article IX, Section I, Paragraph III, rather than by the 1983 residual clause ^[1]

If it fails

• Probate judges continue to be selected “in the manner and for the term they were selected on June 30, 1983, until otherwise provided by local law” — county by county, with party labels where local law provides for them ^[1]

What it would cost

• No fiscal note was read for this research: Georgia's legislative site could not be reached (see what we could not find) ^[1]
• Georgia prints no fiscal estimate on the ballot, and the joint official summary carries no figure ^[1][2]
• No recurring cost is identified in any source read here: the change is to how a county office is elected rather than to anything it spends
• No estimate of any effect on county election administration — for example on which primary, if any, a probate judge candidate would appear in — was found

How it got on the ballot

• A legislative referral, by House Resolution No. 251, published at Ga. L. 2026, p. 1110 ^[1][2]
• The resolution's own title: “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution so as to provide that all probate judges shall be elected in nonpartisan elections; to provide for related matters; to provide for submission of this amendment for ratification or rejection; and for other purposes” ^[1]
• Adopted in the standard form: “BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA” ^[1]
• The General Assembly wrote the ballot question itself into the resolution ^[1]
• No sponsor, committee history or roll call was located: the Georgia General Assembly's legislation service could not be read in this pass (see what we could not find)
• Georgia publishes proposed amendments in an unusual way, and the booklet describes it: “As required by the Constitution, these proposed amendments in their entirety are on file in the office of the judge of the probate court in each county and are available for public inspection” ^[1]
• The summaries are official and jointly authored: “prepared by Attorney General Christopher Carr, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and Legislative Counsel Betsy Howerton and published in the newspaper which is each county's official legal organ” ^[1]
• The short caption that appears above each question on the ballot is not the sponsors' wording either: the captions are “those adopted by the Constitutional Amendments Publication Board” ^[1]

What came before

• The date in the residual clause — June 30, 1983 — is the hinge of this amendment. Georgia's present constitution took effect in 1983 and froze the selection method of every judge not named in the paragraph as of that day, subject to change by local law ^[1]
• That means probate judges' elections have been governed county by county for four decades, which is what a single constitutional sentence would end ^[1]
• The amendment also relocates the question of term length: probate judges' terms would be set by Article IX, Section I, Paragraph III, in the counties article, reflecting that a probate judge is a county officer ^[1]
• This is one of three amendments on Georgia's 2026 ballot, and one of two from the 2026 session ^[1][2]

Who is paying for the campaign

Totals reported by committees formed for this measure. They are not the final figures, and a committee that campaigns on more than one measure is counted on each.

Georgia committees supporting or opposing a ballot question report to the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. No filing was read for this research, so no committee is named and no total is given — that means no figure was read, not that no money is being spent. See what we could not find.

What each side says

Other people's words and claims, not ours, each with the page it came from. Where we found no organised campaign on a side, the page says so rather than inventing one.

Questions worth asking

• Probate judges in Georgia handle estates, guardianships, involuntary commitments, marriage and weapons carry licences, and in many counties traffic and misdemeanour cases. Does a party label help or hinder a voter choosing among candidates for that job?
• Nonpartisan elections mean no party primary. How would candidates be narrowed — a general election with a runoff, and when?
• The amendment sets probate judges' terms by reference to Article IX, Section I, Paragraph III rather than naming a number of years. What does that paragraph say, and could a term length change without another amendment?
• Today a county can set its own arrangements by local law. Which counties elect probate judges on a partisan ballot now, and whose practice would change?
• Would a sitting probate judge's current term be affected, and which election cycle would be the first nonpartisan one?
• Georgia moved most judicial elections to a nonpartisan basis in 1983 and left probate judges out. Why, and does that reason still hold?
• Who is campaigning for or against? Georgia's committee filings were not read for this research.

What we could not find

• The Georgia Secretary of State's website returned a bot-protection refusal (HTTP 403) on every attempt in this pass, and the Georgia General Assembly's legislation API requires a signed key that its own web application computes. Neither block was worked around. So the resolution's sponsors, its committee history, its roll calls in the House and Senate, and any fiscal note are not reported here.
• Article X, Section I, Paragraph II of the Georgia Constitution — the paragraph the resolution points to for how an amendment is submitted and ratified — was not read, so the majority or supermajority required to ratify, and the legislative threshold the resolution had to clear, are not stated above.
• No campaign finance filing was read, so no committee is named and no total is given, for or against.
• Georgia publishes no argument for or against a proposed amendment: the official material is the resolution's text and the joint summary by the Attorney General, the Secretary of State and Legislative Counsel, all of which is descriptive. So neither side's case can be printed from an official source.
• The official material was read from a county election office's published booklet and sample ballot rather than from the Secretary of State directly, because of the refusal above. The booklet states that the amendments in their entirety are on file with each county's probate judge for public inspection.
• Article IX, Section I, Paragraph III of the Georgia Constitution — which would set probate judges' terms — was not read, so the term length a ratified amendment would produce is not stated above.
• Which Georgia counties currently elect probate judges on a partisan ballot, and under what local laws, was not established: no local law and no county-by-county list was read.
• How a nonpartisan probate election would be conducted in practice — primary, runoff, qualifying — was not established; the amendment is silent and no implementing statute was read.
• Whether sitting probate judges' current terms would be affected, and which cycle would be first, was not established.
• No fiscal note for House Resolution 251 was found.

Sources