Judicial elections in Minnesota

Ever flip over your ballot and wonder who the heck all those judges are?  I work the polls on Election Day, and I can almost never find time to learn about the judges.  So why do we elect them?

Minnpost writer Eric Black examines that question:

Should Minnesota stick with the current system of choosing judges by competitive elections and maybe even make judicial elections more similar to elections for other offices by allowing judicial candidates to run as partisans?

Or should the state switch to a system in which judges are recommended by a panel of experts, appointed by governors to vacancies on the bench, and face the voters only in retention elections in which the incumbents do not have opponents? Under this plan, which has been proposed by a commission but could be adopted only by a state constitutional amendment, the voters would decide whether to retain the judge for another term or remove him or her from the bench.

I feel like we should go the second route, that letting judicial candidates run as partisan candidates will be bad for our justice system.  Anyone else?