From gerrymandering to limited ballot access for third parties, Pennsylvania legislators long have sacrificed fair elections and good governance to preserve their own incumbency. Now the state Supreme Court has deadlocked in a way that threatens to extend that poor governance to the judiciary.

In a 3-3 vote, the justices allowed to stand a highly misleading question on the November ballot regarding the mandatory retirement age for all judges in Pennsylvania, from magisterial district judges through the common pleas and appellate courts to the justices themselves.

The Legislature has passed a proposed state constitutional amendment that would increase the mandatory judicial retirement age from 70 to 75. For the change to take effect, voters statewide would have to approve it in the November general election.

After passing the amendment, legislators attempted to manipulate the wording of the actual ballot question to gain political advantage from the one government branch that is supposed to be apolitical. Democrats, who have had a recent string of appellate court electoral victories, want to consolidate those gains. Republicans want to extend the retirement age to create fewer openings.

Legal wrangling over the wording did not begin until after primary ballots for the spring primary were printed and distributed. So, even though the courts invalidated the results in advance, many voters didn't get the word and cast their ballots in the primary. By 51 percent to 49 percent, they voted to retain the current retirement age.

That question made clear that the issue was extending the retirement age from 70 to 75. But the wording for the question that voters will answer in November is misleading. Rather than simply asking voters if they want to extend the retirement age from 70 to 75, it creates the impression that the state would impose a mandatory retirement age for the first time, at 75. The wording: "Shall the Pennsylvania Constitution be amended to require that justices of the Supreme Court, judges, and magisterial district judges be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they attain the age of 75 years?"

Not mentioning that there already is a retirement age of 70 is just the sort of politically self-serving misdirection that Pennsylvanians have come to expect from legislators. That the courts have failed to prevent it is a woeful failure of the checks and balances that are supposed to regulate the three-branch government.