Bar mails merit retention poll.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead and Justice Charles Wells lead the list of 26 appellate judges who will be on the merit retention ballot this fall.

Voters will be asked whether the justices and the DCA judges should be retained for six-year terms.

The Florida Bar will poll the membership about the judges and justices standing for merit retention this year, as it has in the past, to assist the public with the merit retention process. (Biographical information on the jurists begins on page 22.) Ballots are scheduled to be mailed on August 16. They must be returned to the Bar postmarked no later than September 6. The results will be published in the News.

Since voters approved merit selection and retention for the appellate judiciary in 1976, no judge or justice has lost a merit retention election.

DCA judges on the merit retention ballot include:

* In the First DCA, Robert T. Benton, Marguerite H. Davis, Joseph...