Because the median voter doesn't realistically have that detailed a level of knowledge on legislators/their policies. This is tough for a lot of people to believe- especially the kind of high-information voters who propose these sorts of reforms to begin with. But there's an enormous, multi-decade literature on voter ignorance. They simply don't know much about who's running or what their policies are
But if they came from your own small town and had a reputation in that small town based on years of living there?