In an off-year election, with a state Supreme Court seat as the highest-profile race on the primary ballot, it's easy to forget candidates for magisterial district judge — the lowest rung of Pennsylvania's judicial system.

But these 512 people preside over the kinds of disputes many of us might encounter someday, like a small-claims dispute with a home contractor, a traffic offense, a violation of a local ordinance, or a disagreement with a landlord. (On evictions, they have significant discretion over who should be protected from being forced from their home and who shouldn't.)

District judges must run for reelection every six years, and not every voter will be asked to weigh in during this election cycle. So is your local magistrate on the ballot? It's a basic question that, depending on where you live, can be surprisingly tough to answer.

THE CONTEXT: The first barrier is finding out who your magistrate is. Pennsylvania's central court system maintains a list of all magistrates by county and district (Philadelphia uses a different system and is excluded). Figuring out which district you live in can be a challenge. For example, it's easy in Lehigh County, which has a lookup tool, but tougher in Lancaster County, which only publishes a static map.

The best place to look for that information is your county government's website. Then, visit your county's election division for a list of candidates or sample ballot to see if your district judge is up for reelection. 

Investigating an incumbent or challenger's qualifications is also difficult. They aren't evaluated or given a rating by the Pennsylvania Bar Association (it only reviews the qualifications of people running for appellate court seats). And local coverage of these races is spotty, at best. 

That's a significant lack of scrutiny for judges who make $93,338 a year, with the possibility of a pension and lifetime health care. As a Spotlight PA/PennLive investigation found, there are also huge variations in their workloads. In 2019, 10% of district judges had at least 60 days without court appearances, above and beyond holidays, weekends, and training days.

One measure you can consider for incumbents is how many days of the year they did (or didn't) have court proceedings using this tool. 

» Learn something from today's edition? Pay it forward so someone else can tomorrow by making a contribution of any amount to Spotlight PA.

HUMBLE BRAG: Spotlight PA (that's us!) took several top prizes in this year's Society of Professional Journalists Keystone Pro Chapter Spotlight Contest. Among the work honored: our reporting on Gov. Tom Wolf's flawed business waiver program, failures to address racism on college campuses, and our deep investigation into the Mariner East pipeline. See the full list here.

FOGGER: A time-lapse of dense fog rolling in on Pittsburgh this week — also seen in this still shot from shutterbug Dave DiCello — is serene. I can confirm, as a Pittsburgher, that driving through the fog at 7 a.m. was less so.

DEBATE CLUB: Speaking of Pittsburgh ... If you're planning to vote in next month's mayoral Democratic primary there, a debate hosted by WESA and the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation revealed a lot about the people running.

KINGPENN: The "Ginger Assassin," whose rare 7-10 split in a professional bowling tournament recently went viral, is an 18-year-old from Milton named Anthony Neuer. "I like it,” Neuer told The Daily Item of the nickname.

DOCTOR'S IN: A Jenkintown doctor who laid "the groundwork for the novel mRNA vaccines turning the tide of the pandemic" celebrated by eating an entire box of Goobers, the New York Times reports.