For the period 1970 through 2018, over one-third of all Massachusetts U.S. House elections had only one candidate on the November ballot.  During the same period, no  other state had as many as 25% of its races with only one person on the ballot.

The reason Massachusetts has had so many uncontested races for that office is because it has the nation’s most severe petition requirement to get on a primary ballot.  It requires 2,000 signatures.  No other state has such a high requirement for U.S. House primary ballot access.

Also, Massachusetts has rather severe laws for independent candidates to get on the ballot.  And the state has consistently made the requirements more difficult over the years.  In 1952, the Prohibition Party ran almost a full slate of candidates for U.S. House.  In 1953, in response, the law was amended to make it more difficult for convention parties to run for district office.

In 1973, the legislature eliminated provision for small ballot-qualified parties to nominate by convention, and provided that all qualified parties had to nominate by primary.  This was a severe blow, because the petitions for candidates to get on primary ballots was difficult.

In the 1990’s decade, Massachusetts had three ballot-qualified minor parties at one time or another, the most it had had in any decade since the 1940’s.  This came about because the voters had passed an initiative in 1990, easing the definition of a qualified party.  In 1998 the legislature doubled the number of signatures needed for a small qualified party to place candidates on its primary ballot.