Voters might have to wait until November’s general election to decide whether or not Pennsylvania’s mandatory retirement age for judges should be raised from 70 to 75. The measure, which is a constitutional amendment voters were originally expected to decide next month, might be on hold because of language Senate Republican leaders fear is unnecessary and confusing for voters.

That’s disappointing, since Pennsylvania has spent more than $1 million since January advertising the ballot question. And it is long past time to put this issue, which had to receive lawmakers’ approval in two separate legislative sessions, to bed.

If it doesn’t seem to be a pressing issue, think again. If the current age limit of 70 were to remain in effect, there would be three vacancies on the state Supreme Court — including current Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor — between now and 2019. If the age is raised, the first Supreme Court seat would not open up until 2021, when Saylor would turn 75. And that doesn’t take into account how many jurists sitting on the bench in the state’s Superior and Commonwealth courts would be immediately effected by any change in the rules.

So voters’ choice this year, whenever it happens, will have real world and political consequences in both the near and long-terms — and it’s not an easy call to make.

There are clear benefits to increasing mandatory judicial retirement ages. Pennsylvania’s was set all the way back in 1968, when average life expectancy in the United States was about 70. Today, that’s climbed to nearly 80 years old, and proponents argue — compellingly — that it’s smart for the state’s overburdened court system to take advantage of experienced and capable jurists rather than force them out using some arbitrary and out-of-date benchmark.

Conversely, there’s a strong case to be made that mandatory retirements help rejuvenate the judiciary by promoting the flow of new judges with new ideas into the court system. There’s also no evidence that mandatory retirements harm the judiciary in any way. If anything, the argument goes, the benchmarks keep aging jurists from having to wrestle with the question of whether or not they are still fully capable of doing their job. There will inevitably be vigorous judges forced into retirement before their time, but isn’t it better to err on the side of caution?

Voters have tended to agree with the latter argument. Ballot questions to extend judicial retirement ages have appeared 11 times in nine states since 1995, and almost all have failed. One of the few exceptions is a 2002 vote in Vermont that raised the state’s judicial retirement age to 90.

Nothing so drastic is being proposed in Pennsylvania. But there’s nothing wrong with voters approaching this issue with the gravity and caution such a serious issue deserves.