One Name, One Box: Reading an Uncontested Ballot

Pendleton County, 2026 general election

Look down Pendleton County's ballot and a pattern jumps out: office after office with one name printed, one box beside it, and a blank write-in line below. It's easy to read that as a ballot with nothing to decide. It's more accurate to read it as a ballot where much of the deciding already happened, somewhere else and earlier.

This page explains what an uncontested race is, what your options are when you meet one, and where the choosing actually happens. As always, it names no candidates and recommends no votes.

How much of the ballot is uncontested

Every Pendleton voter will see 17 races, plus Amendment 1. In 13 of those races, only one candidate is printed: State Representative, a circuit judgeship, the Circuit Clerk, and every countywide office from Judge/Executive to Coroner, along with your magistrate and constable. Voters in four precincts will also see a school board seat, and both seats on the ballot have one candidate each.

Four races have more than one candidate for every voter: U.S. Senate, U.S. House, State Senate, and District Judge. If you live in Butler or Falmouth, the mayor and city council races are contested too, and they're among the closest choices on the ballot, with more candidates than seats.

One race is less settled than it looks. The Circuit Clerk race has one printed name, but a certified write-in candidate has also filed. For how that works, see How a Write-In Vote Counts in Kentucky.

Your options in an uncontested race

When you reach a race with one name, you have three choices, and all three are legitimate:

• Vote for the printed candidate by filling in the box beside the name.
• Write in a certified write-in candidate, if one has filed for that office, and fill in the write-in box. A written name counts only if that person filed in advance; the poll workers' certified list tells you who did.
• Leave the race blank. Skipping one race doesn't affect your votes in any other race. The printed candidate will still win, but a blank is a way of saying you chose not to choose.

What you shouldn't do is fill in the printed box and also write someone in. That's an overvote, and neither mark counts.

Where the choosing actually happens

An office with one name in November got that way in one of two ways: only one person filed to run, or the field was narrowed in the May primary.

The primary is where much of Kentucky's real choosing happens, and Kentucky's primaries are closed. Only voters registered with a party can vote in that party's primary. A voter registered as an independent, or with a smaller party, has no say in May, which in a county like this one can mean no real say at all in many local offices.

That isn't a verdict on anyone who holds or seeks office. It's a description of how the system works, and it's worth knowing, because it tells you where the leverage is:

• Check your registration before the next primary. Party registration decides which primary you can vote in, and Kentucky sets a deadline, well before the primary, for switching parties. The State Board of Elections publishes the dates.
• Consider running. Many local offices are uncontested because no one else filed. Candidates for Kentucky's May primaries file with the County Clerk or the Secretary of State by early January of the election year. Nonpartisan races, like school board and city offices, have their own filing rules.
• Pay attention between elections. County offices do much of their most consequential work, from budgets to roads to elections themselves, far from any ballot. Fiscal Court meetings are open to the public.

Why it's still worth marking

Even a race with one name is a public record of how many people showed up for it. Turnout in uncontested races, and the number who skip them, is visible in the official results, and candidates notice both. More practically, the same ballot carries races that are genuinely close, especially the city races and Amendment 1, and the uncontested offices sit between them.

So read the whole ballot. The text version of Pendleton's ballot shows every race and which ones appear in your precinct, and the Ace the Midterms hub has everything else about November.

Sources

• Pendleton County sample ballot, November 3, 2026 general election, published under KRS 424.290
• Pendleton County Clerk's office, candidate filings and correspondence, September 2026
• KRS 117.265 and 31 KAR 6:030: write-in candidates and counting rules
• Kentucky State Board of Elections, 2026 election calendar and voter registration information