Many, if not most, of the elected judges are elected in situations in which the political parties have made deals for cross-nominations are in judicial districts in which one party has overwhelming dominance. The great contested judicial elections have been for the Court of Appeals. These elections produces Cardozo, Hand, Fuld, Van Voorhes, Breitel, etc. It has not produced the same quality of Judges that the elective system did. In the future, it may be that a tradition will arise in which the governor will begin to think of these appointments much like the President thinks of his appointments to the US Supreme Court and we will get very good and very bad judges.
Most counties elect trial court judges.
The rest of the judges, including the judges of the three courts of appeals and the justices of the supreme court, are appointed by the Governor. The trial court judges selected in this way are mainly in urban areas where election fraud, etc., was a problem in the time of the political machines. However, the Governor does not have every lawyer in the state from whom to choose. Rather, nominees must be screened by a judicial selection commission composed of lawyers from the jurisdiction who themselves have been by all lawyers in the area. The commission presents the Governor with a panel of three names from which to choose.