Most positions in 2023 had only one candidate on the ballot, and many had none at all

Introduction

Each cycle, our Research team spends thousands of hours working with local election offices across the country to obtain lists of positions up for election, and the certified candidates running for each those positions.

And each cycle, there is a clear trend – a majority of these positions have only one candidate running. This leaves voters confused and disappointed at the ballot box, and enables candidates (typically incumbents) to avoid campaigning or defending their records.

Nearly 65% of positions in 2023 went uncontested

Over half of Mississippi State Senate races went uncontested. So did 9 New York Supreme Court seat elections and over 30 Virginia House of Delegate seats. And that’s only at the state government level.

During the 2023 General Election, we provided coverage for nearly 28,000 unique positions up for election across multiple states. Of those positions, over 17,000 offered no choice.

Across the country and in almost each state, voters got to the ballot box and only cast a meaningful vote for a few positions without a meaningful choice on the majority of their ballots.

Nearly 10% of races had no candidates at all

Around 2,500 races (10% of the positions on the ballot in 2023) had zero certified candidates.

Not only did these positions go uncontested, but no candidate filed to run whatsoever. In these instances, the situation is handled the same way as any other vacancy — i.e., the position is vacant in the short term and then the relevant legislative body or executive appoints an officeholder. However, there are instances where the relevant appointers struggle to find anyone to fill the seat which leads to downsizing, merging services/branches of government, or switching to appointed and at-large seats.

Even state legislative seats are going uncontested

While the problem gets dramatically worse at more local levels of government, nearly half of our state government elected officials are being elected by default, including state legislatures and state supreme court justices.

At the local levels, there is hardly any competition at all. Thousands of seats on city councils, school boards, and county commissions regularly go uncontested. Meanwhile, positions in our legal system like judges, clerks, district attorneys and sheriffs are the worst offenders with the rate of uncontested races often going as high as 80%.

What's next?

At BallotReady, we're committed to providing information to voters and using our data to analyze democracy. We'll continue to provide analyses of uncontested races in 2024, as well as opportunities on our platform to change this by encouraging users to run for office.