Butte County voters might be surprised to know most of the countywide positions up for election this year may already be decided.
Five superior court judgeships and one board of supervisors seat will face no competition in this year’s primary election, leaving just two races open to a vote. But Butte County voters might not know that by looking at their ballots.
That’s because unopposed judicial seats don’t appear on the ballot.
“Judges have their own special set of rules that doesn’t apply to other legislative offices or local offices,” said Keaton Denlay, Butte County clerk-recorder and registrar of voters.
Local judges win their seats on the bench in elections and serve a six-year term. Citizens can technically vote local judges out, but the only way a judge’s name appears on the ballot is if another person runs or begins a judicial write-in campaign. In Butte County, no one’s challenged local judges for “a very long time,” Denlay said.
The last time a judge’s name appeared on the ballot was in 2014. Aside from that race, every local judicial election since 2000 has been uncontested.
These special rules for local judges mean few voters get to know who they are, even though local judges often cross paths with citizens on matters as everyday as traffic violations and child support.
According to Denlay, voters who want to learn more can look for a candidate statement on the registrar of voters’ website or call the Superior Court to ask about the judge’s history serving the county.
But, he said, all five judicial races are already “a done deal.”
One supervisor also running unopposed
Butte County Board of Supervisors incumbent Bill Connelly is alone running for District 1 this election. In order to be re-elected, Connelly must get more than 50% of the votes, which Denlay said he’s sure to do. This is because only votes for names on the ballot or for qualified write-in campaigns will be counted. Not voting for anyone or voting for a write-in name that isn’t on the list of qualified campaigns won’t count.
Candidates who want to run a qualified write-in campaign have to file two weeks before election day. This year, there are no qualified write-in candidates. That means the incumbent supervisor will be elected “de facto.”
“If you're running unopposed, you're going to get more than 50% of the votes cast,” Denlay said.
If Connelly had run against a qualified write-in candidate, and if he hadn’t gotten the majority, he and the runner-up would have advanced to the general election for a head-to-head contest.
Besides Connelly, a handful of other supervisors have been elected this way in recent years. Those races were run in 2012, 2006 and 2002.
The impact of uncontested races on democracy
The lack of competition in Butte County’s primaries is consistent with the national picture. Competition in local elections has been falling for years. Recent data analysis from the online U.S. politics website Ballotpedia showed in November 2022, almost 80% of countywide races across the nation had just one name on the ballot. Overall, 67% of incumbents running in 2022 went unopposed.
A more recent Ballotpedia analysis examining a much smaller pool of local elections in 2023 found more than 60% of local positions went uncontested.
Political scientists say uncontested races weaken democracy and increase partisan divide by ensuring the incumbent party stays in office every election year. Some argue the lack of choice in uncontested races leads to lower voter turnout.
Denlay said he hasn’t observed a trend between voter turnout in Butte County and the number of unopposed races on the ballot. He said top-of-the-ballot items, like presidential and gubernatorial elections, are better predictors of participation.
So far this year, voter turnout has been low. On Feb. 26, just a little over a week before election day, Denlay’s office only had ballots from around 12% of the county’s voters.
Other important countywide positions will appear on the ballot for re-election in 2026. That includes the county superintendent of schools, which has had unopposed elections since the 1990s, and the district attorney, Mike Ramsey, who has won more than four uncontested races in the last two decades. Ramsey is California’s longest-serving DA.
