Maybe it’s apathy or disinterest, or maybe people don’t want to put themselves up for public scrutiny in person or on social media, where criticism is often personal, cruel and unfounded.

Whatever the reason, fewer people are seeking public office. BallotReady looked at election data and found some surprising results — “over 10,000 open seats up for election across the country last year had zero candidates appear on the ballot.”

In races where there were candidates, in 2024, nearly 70% of incumbents went uncontested.

“Typically, incumbents face no challengers, and voters are left with no real choice,” the organization noted.

So far this year, 22% of races had not a single candidate appearing on the ballot across certain elections.

According to BallotReady, “In some cases, no new candidates filed to run, elections were canceled and incumbents were elected unofficially. In many more cases, seats went completely unfilled. This includes thousands of school board, city council and various county board seats.”

In McKean County, it is common to see few Democrats running for office. Smaller elected offices, like elections officials and auditors, often have no candidates for either party.

This year, however, there were seemingly more offices without candidates than there has been in recent memory. On the ballot, there were no candidates for supervisor in a few townships, mayor in a few boroughs, councilmen, and two regions on one school board.

Many of the races where candidates were listed were uncontested, like county row offices of sheriff, prothonotary, controller and treasurer.

In each county, several of the offices without candidates were settled with write-ins at the time of the primary election.

In Elk County, more Democrats seek office than in McKean. For the primary, the ballot was far from full. Again, seats for auditor and elections offices were often bereft of candidates. Millstone Township had candidates for each office on the Republican ballot, as did the first and fifth districts of St. Marys.

In Potter County, there were few Democratic candidates — 25 in total, including school districts from other counties where the districts cross county lines, which are Port Allegany and Keystone Central from Clinton County.

Row offices of district attorney and coroner were unopposed on the Republican ticket. There were three municipalities where, other than the state judges and row offices, there were no candidates for any municipal office on the ballot — Abbott Township, Oswayo Borough and Pike Township. No candidates from either party had sought a spot on the school boards of Austin or Galeton. Seven municipalities had no candidates for township supervisor, and two had no candidates for mayor. Council seats had no candidates, or not as many candidates as there were openings, as well.

In Cameron County, there were a total of three candidates on the Democratic ballot. On the Republican ticket, there were no candidates for two of the five school board seats. Driftwood Borough had no candidates from either party for any of the municipal seats — mayor, three council seats, judge of election and inspector of election. There were no candidates for township supervisor in two townships, Lumber and Gibson.

BallotReady said more than 750 open state trial court judge seats had no one to run. These judicial seats are typically filled by appointment instead – and oftentimes, they don’t appear on the ballot the next time around.

Small cities and counties are struggling most — but some state and regional seats had zero options, too.

According to The Era’s research, there are 177 unique position types across the country that had zero candidates or went unfilled, mostly down-ballot. This includes positions like county sheriff, county constable, city attorney, and — in some cases — even state legislator or superior court judge.

BallotReady said 6,100 open seats on Nov. 5, 2024, alone didn’t even have a default candidate option.