Of the 16 Democratic candidates vying for open seats on the state Supreme Court bench in Brooklyn, six will end up on the ballot in the November general election, each running unopposed.

The slate of candidates to be presented to voters in deep-blue Brooklyn, however, is not the product of an intra-party primary—as in past years, it will be the product of a controversial nomination process conducted prior to the general election in which party insiders choose who ends up on the ballot.

But this year, the candidates on the November ballot have been subject to an additional layer of review that included getting grilled at in-person interviews, visits to their courtrooms, close readings of some of their unpublished rulings and surveys of prosecutors, defense attorneys, litigants and other parties who may have appeared before them.