When the dust settled on qualifying for nonpartisan judicial elections Friday, some rare sights came into view: open seat races for Superior Court seats and competition for incumbent Georgia Supreme Court justices.

And after all the interrupted campaigning of the past few months, judges who planned to leave their seats open to run for higher courts—inspiring multiple contenders—wound up qualifying for their old jobs unopposed.

In Atlanta, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell, who has served on that bench for nearly 25 years, did not qualify for reelection to her post. Instead, five candidates signed up to compete for her job. They are, in ballot alphabetical order: Fulton County Magistrate Court Judge Melynee Leftridge Harris; Atlanta BeltLine Inc. general counsel Nina R. Hickson, attorney and mediator Tamika Hrobowski-Houston; Hait & Kuhn partner Lizz Kuhn; and Magistrate Judge Ashley Baker Osby.

In Marietta, Cobb County Superior Court Judges S. Lark Ingram, 66, and J. Stephen Schuster, 68, both announced last month that they will not seek reelection. Their current terms expire Dec. 31.

Two candidates qualified to run for Ingram's seat: Cobb Magistrate Court Judge Kellie Hill and family law practitioner Daniele C. Johnson.

Competitors for Schuster's seat are: Marietta criminal defense lawyer John Robert Greco; Cobb County Senior District Attorney Jason Marbutt; and attorney Gregory "Greg" Shenton, who represents businesses in litigation, leases, construction documents and other matters.

Two of the newest justices on the Georgia Supreme Court—Sarah Warren and Charlie Bethel—will both face competition. They will appear on the ballot for their jobs for the first time since Gov. Nathan Deal appointed them in 2018. It will be the first election campaign for Warren, and the first for Supreme Court by Bethel, a former state legislator from Dalton.

Warren's opponent is U.S. Army veteran and author Hal Moroz, a former Dougherty County assistant district attorney and judge for St. Marys Municipal Court and Camden County Magistrate Court.

Bethel's opponent is Beth Beskin, a partner at the Atlanta offices of Freeman Mathis & Gary and former Republican state representative from Atlanta. Beskin chose to qualify against Bethel after the Secretary of State's Office refused her entry against Justice Keith Blackwell, who announced the Friday before qualifying started on Monday that he plans to leave office in November and allow Gov. Brian Kemp to appoint his replacement. Beskin also is suing the governor and the secretary of state over the Blackwell post, as is Athens attorney and former U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Georgia.

Running against Bethel was actually the third choice for Beskin. She had first planned to compete for Georgia Supreme Court Justice Robert Benham's seat against Georgia Court of Appeals Presiding Judge Sara Doyle, Barrow and Alcovy Circuit Superior Court Judge Horace Johnson Jr. (Johnson presides over superior court in Newton and Walton counties).

Doyle was the first to announce plans to seek Benham's job after conferring with the justice about his plans to retire at the end of the year when his current term expires, leaving the seat open for the 2020 election. That was April. But in December, Benham abruptly changed his plans to leave March 1 and allow the governor to appoint his replacement.

By December, seven candidates had launched plans to run for Doyle's Court of Appeals job, and a couple had announced intentions to run for Johnson's Superior Court job. But when qualifying closed Friday, Doyle and Johnson were unopposed for their old jobs.

The nonpartisan judicial elections will be held with the general primary on May 19.