Earlier this year, the Indiana legislature passed a bill that says in municipal elections (which are partisan in Indiana), if only one person is running, the office should be removed from the ballot and that person should be deemed elected. On September 2, the Republican Party of Wayne County, Indiana, and the Democratic Party of Wayne County filed a lawsuit, arguing that the new law violates the State Constitution. See this story. It will be heard on September 9. Some candidates for Richmond common council joined the lawsuit.

The law says, “An election may not be held for a municipal office if there is only one nominee for the office or only one person has filed a declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate.”

States that remove offices from the ballot when only one person is running (this policy in these states covers all elections, even Congressional elections) are Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. States with laws like this either ban write-in votes, or else require write-in candidates to file a declaration of write-in candidacy several months before the election, which defeats one of the purposes of having write-in space on ballots: to account for late-breaking developments.