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No endorsement

The race

One seat on Ohio's Eighth District Court of Appeals — all of Cuyahoga County, one of the largest and busiest appellate courts in Ohio — full term commencing February 12, 2027. Roster verified against the CSV's compilation source and the Vote411 voter guide: incumbent Judge Anita Laster Mays (D), on this court since February 2015, against Anthony Alto (R).

Anita Laster Mays — Incumbent. A 33-plus-year legal career: private practice in criminal, probate, family, and civil matters; assistant Cleveland prosecutor; deputy director of the Criminal Division in the Cleveland Clerk of Courts office; then 11 years as a Cleveland Municipal Court judge (elected 2003), where she ran the Greater Cleveland Drug Court — with, per her official court biography, 80 percent of graduates remaining drug-free and living productive lives — plus the Mental Health Docket and the Federal Weed and Seed Docket, and served on the Ohio Supreme Court's Specialized Docket Advisory Board. Elected to the Eighth District in 2014, reelected in 2020, and unanimously elected by her colleagues as the court's Administrative and Presiding Judge for 2023. Her Vote411 answers rest on that record: "I am currently serving in my 23rd year as judge." Credits are substantial and documented. Dirt search at the proven standard: no discipline, no scandal, and no signature activist ruling surfaced in the deep pass. The doctrinal limit, stated precisely: nothing in a long, well-documented record shows a textualist commitment or a ruling breaking against her own party's preferences — the specialized-docket, treatment-court model she built her trial career on is mainstream Ohio practice, stated as fact and not priced as activism, because no ruling proving activism was found.

Anthony Alto — Challenger. The Republican nominee on the certified ballot. The deep pass on Alto is documented here in full because its result decides this article: Vote411's guide for this exact race lists Alto with every question — judicial experience, qualifying legal experience, why he is running, challenges facing the courts, obstacles to justice — answered "Candidate has not yet responded." Searches for a campaign website, a Judicial Votes Count questionnaire, an endorsement list, a practice biography, and any news coverage of his candidacy returned nothing attributable to him beyond the ballot listing itself. As with any blank file: that is an absence of evidence, not evidence of unfitness, and we price nothing against Alto personally.

Pros and cons

Mays: Pros: Twenty-three years judging, a decade-plus on this court, her colleagues' unanimous choice to lead it, and a drug-court record with a documented 80-percent drug-free graduate rate — rehabilitation with numbers attached. Cons: Under LiberalMind's stated test, longevity and collegial esteem are not a restraint record; no documented break or textualist ruling exists in her file for us to endorse a Democrat on. Alto: Pros: The Republican nomination on the certified ballot — the only verified fact available. Cons: A completely uninspectable candidacy: he did not answer the League of Women Voters' questionnaire at all, and no campaign record exists in any source retrieved. Voters cannot verify a single qualification.

Record gaps

OUR CALL

Our call: no endorsement — insufficient record. The evidentiary basis, stated symmetrically: this is the same verdict as the Sixth District race, reached by the same road. Alto's file is a ballot line and an unanswered questionnaire — there is no philosophy, no record, and no platform for this page to endorse, and unproven, while never a demerit, cannot carry an endorsement. Mays's file is the mirror image: deep, distinguished, and fully documented above — and it contains no proven restrained break record, which is the only basis on which LiberalMind endorses a Democrat over a Republican. We will not manufacture a call the evidence does not support in either direction; Cuyahoga County voters get the full ledger on both candidates instead, which is what this page owes them.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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