Uncontested Elections: Rural Wisconsin as a Case Study

On this episode: An interview with Sophia Voight, a political reporter for The Appleton Post-Crescent, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK in Wisconsin. We came across Sophia’s reporting about a month ago in a story she wrote just ahead of Wisconsin’s state-wide local elections on April 2nd, in which she noticed and documented something that we’ve been following closely here at Ballotpedia: Local elections, especially in rural areas, are increasingly going uncontested. 

Through April of this year, Ballotpedia covered 11,945 elections in 40 states. Of that total, 8,802 (74%) were uncontested–16% more than the annual average between 2018 and 2023 (58%). 

Voight joins Ballotpedia’s Doug Kronaizl to share what she’s learned in her reporting about why folks aren’t running for office, what the implications for local governance might be, and what might reverse this trend. 

Learn more about the surge of uncontested elections this year: https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_uncontested_elections,_2024 

Read Voight’s reporting: https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/03/28/rural-wisconsin-communities-struggle-to-attract-candidates-for-elections/73032197007/ 

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*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole.