Fifteen candidates for seven spots on three state courts were on the ballot in a municipal election year with no marquee races to generate voter turnout anywhere in the state.

The low-profile court contests appeared to draw lower than normal court-race turnout; some experts projected a statewide figure below 20 percent.

It looks like the Republicans cashed in.

Pittsburgh Republican Joan Orie Melvin won the bitter if barely visible battle for state Supreme Court against Easton Democrat Jack Panella. With 93 percent of the state vote counted late last night, Orie Melvin held an insurmountable 53-47 lead.

It was a contest fueled by trial lawyers' money and partisan politics in which Orie Melvin was vastly outspent and faced a 1.2 million-voter registration deficit.

She gives the high court (currently 4-3 Democratic) a 4-3 Republican edge starting in January. That puts the GOP in the driver's seat in drawing legislative district lines after the 2010 census, which could impact state politics for a decade.

She clearly was helped by a state judicial election pattern favoring women from western counties that draws gender and regional support. She also ran an aggressive, hard-hitting campaign, saying her opponent's acceptance of millions of dollars in contributions from trial lawyers and labor looked like "justice for sale."

And she might have benefited from Philly's World Series-mania (there was no focus on this race) and the surprise transit strike early yesterday morning that helped keep some of the city's overwhelmingly Democratic vote from going to the polls.

Something kept Democrats away.

In the 2007 Supreme Court race, Pittsburgh Democrat Debra Todd got more than 167,000 votes in Philly. Yesterday, Panella, with 95 percent of the city vote counted, got fewer than 93,000.

The reform group Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts yesterday said that Panella set a new state record for judicial fundraising, raking in $2.35 million. Money usually wins these things.

But Orie Melvin was endorsed by every major newspaper endorsing in the race and got cash and help from GOP committees and officeholders. It didn't hurt that her sister, state Sen. Jane Orie, is Senate majority whip. Campaign finance records show large contributions flowing to and from the senator's campaign committee and various GOP committees.

And among those who did vote yesterday, it looks like some P.O.'d Republicans were out to send a message to Barack Obama or Ed Rendell or Democrats, period.

Republican judicial candidates - again, against a big registration deficit - were positioned to clean up in races for both state Superior Court and Commonwealth Court.

With most of the statewide vote counted, three Republican women candidates were leading in the vote-for-four Superior Court race.

GOP Allegheny County Judge Judy Olson, whose TV ads referred to her as "Judge Judy," was leading the pack; Tioga County (way up there by New York) lawyer Sallie Mundy, "Vote Mundy on Tuesday," was running second; and Chester County Judge Paula Ott was running third.

The remaining Superior Court candidates, including Philly Democratic Common Pleas Judges Anne Lazarus and Teresa Sarmina, were bunched together for the fourth seat on the court with similar percentages of the total vote and no clear winner early this morning.

In the pick-two contest for Commonwealth Court, Republicans Allegheny County Judge Patricia McCullough and Harrisburg attorney Kevin Brobson were leading the two Democratic candidates.

I'm not one to put much stock in the results of one election cycle impacting a future cycle, but at a minimum such positive GOP outcomes can help that party with fundraising and candidate recruitment.

It was, plain and simple, a good day for statewide Republicans, a bad day for Democrats. But the way we put judges on the bench? Who knows what kind of day it was for justice?*

Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.

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