Politics nerds have many ideas about how to strengthen American democracy. However, few directly address silent elections. For example, ranked-choice voting does nothing to encourage more candidates to run if there are not enough. Term limits increase turnover, but even newcomers can frequently run uncontested in general elections if they have won competitive primaries.

Fortunately, the cause isn’t hopeless. For one, tightening campaign finance laws would put potential challengers on more even footing with corporate-backed politicians, encouraging more candidates to run.

Independent redistricting would also help. The Cook Political Report, a poll aggregator, considers only 69 of America’s 435 House districts competitive. Fair redistricting means more competitive districts and therefore more contested elections.

Fortunately, uncontested elections are not inevitable. Direct interventions that focus on the problem can reduce their occurrence. One often-overlooked proposal is open primaries. With open primaries, a single primary occurs for all parties from which two or more of the highest vote-getters — regardless of party affiliation — advance to the general election. Open primaries ensure that the important electoral decisions occur in general elections — where they receive more turnout and attention — instead of primaries.

District size can also help. California’s state assembly has only 80 seats, creating constituencies 2.5x the size of any other state house district in America. More people means more potential candidates.

Another potentially impactful reform is making larger districts multimember, where multiple elected officials represent one district. Studies show that multimember districts can greatly reduce the rate of uncontested elections. Competitive elections require fewer total candidates with multimember districts because a district of 30,000 people needs only four candidates to competitively elect three legislators — for example four candidates for three spots — whereas three districts of 10,000 people need six candidates total to competitively elect one legislator each — two candidates for one seat in each district. Multimember districts also help new candidates by letting them challenge multiple incumbents simultaneously and get elected by beating just one.

Institutional reforms can help increase the number of candidates who run, but some barriers are innate to the political process, or at least to the political culture. Political office is often a demanding, underappreciated job where politicians struggle to make the change they want. What’s more, aspiring politicians must invest massive amounts of time into a campaign before they can start doing the job — and often, they lose.

A single reform may not be able to guarantee quality contested elections, but a cultural change can. In Canada’s 1867 parliamentary elections, the country’s first, 25% of seats were won by “acclamation.” Silent elections remained common for several decades, but eventually — and not due to any specific policy — the practice faded. No Canadian parliamentary seat has been won by acclamation since 1957.

Canadian democratic institutions and culture promote contested elections. For one, Canada has four national parties, helping ensure at least two parties run a candidate in every district. Additionally, election season in Canada is short and doesn’t include a primary, meaning candidates need not invest nearly as much time or resources as they do in America.

One of Canada’s minor parties, the Rhinoceros Party, demonstrates the difference between Canadian and American political culture. Founded in 1967, the satirical Rhinoceros Party has advocated for filling the Canadian Senate by lottery and putting more green cars on the street, as in painted green. The party had its best year in 1980, when it captured 1% of the popular vote. It ran 29 candidates in 2025. Though deeply unserious, Canada’s Rhinoceros Party makes politics fun and encourages politically disillusioned voters to engage.

The shift may already be underway, not because of an institutional reform, but because we are in an urgent political moment that is inspiring unconventional candidates to run small campaigns whose impact is anything but. America must use that energy to sustain a cultural shift before it runs out of long shot candidates.

Rafael Gonzalez is an MPP student at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Before graduate school, he worked for Boston Consulting Group, the World Food Programme, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has previously been published by Public Seminar for an article on industrial agriculture.