This election, a significant change will come to Washington's highest court.

Voters will elect five justices out of the nine that sit on the state Supreme Court.

Typically, during a given election cycle, voters may decide on three justice positions which have six year terms.

But Mike McClanahan, executive producer and host of TVW's The Impact, says this year is unique.

-I reached out to the Secretary of State's office to ask if this is the first time we've had this many justice positions on the ballot at one time, and they said they think so.

It seems to be unprecedented.

There's a caveat, though.

It is hard to be certain, they say, because historic election results did not list justice positions the same way they are listed today.

Now, there have been elections, including as recently as 2020, where there were four judicial positions on the state Supreme Court ballot in the fall.

But you know, this is five.

So we're looking at more than half of the nine justices.

-Two justices took early retirement in the last year, which is why two extra seats are on the ballot.

The two justices appointed to those seats in the last year are running to keep them.

In two of the other races incumbents also decided to not seek reelection, all amounting to a shift in the court.

McClanahan says once back in session, the new court will face a litany of potential issues, such as a different legal challenge to the millionaire's tax.

-Of course, there's also an initiative on the ballot that's seeking to repeal that, but there's a separate legal challenge in the works that is just widely expected to make it to the Supreme Court at some point.

-Next time, we'll tell you about the process for certifying the election results.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thanks for watching The Newsfeed.