Ballot question awaits voters Nov. 8.

A referendum asking voters if they want 75 to be the mandatory age of retirement for judges in Pennsylvania will appear on the ballot Nov. 8, though the wording has been in dispute since before the primary.

The language in the ballot question has been challenged for neglecting to state that the current mandatory retirement age is 70, so that a “yes” vote means extending the amount of time a judge could serve by five years.

If the ballot question is approved, justices, judges and magisterial district judges would be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they turn 75.

The proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution was initially slated to run on the pri- mary ballot. The wording asked if voters wanted to change the mandatory retirement age from 70 to 75, but the Republican-led Legislature voted to change the wording, leaving out the current retirement age, and put it on the general election ballot in November.

The new mandatory age

requirement would apply to all 1,027 state judges, of whom 19 will turn 70 in 2016, Jim Koval, spokesman for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, had said when the controversy began last spring.

At the highest level, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Saylor will turn 70 this year, and Supreme Court Justice Max Baer turns 70 next year.

Those who have chal-

lenged the wording say it is intended to deceive voters.

The state Supreme Court deadlocked on making a decision on a legal challenge filed by former state Supreme Court Justices Ronald D. Castille and Stephen Zappala Sr. and Philadelphia lawyer Richard A. Sprague, and the case is currently pending in Commonwealth Court. As of Oct. 6, the court had not issued an opinion.