Mid-term elections never attract the attention of contests in presidential years. This year’s election will be no different.

An Associated Press article Monday pointed out that half of the state lawmakers in Harrisburg will face no opposition in 2014 — no primary opponent, no opposition in November.

While that’s good for incumbent politicians, it’s not good for citizens — or democracy.

In Washington, D.C., members of Congress have been getting re-elected at a 90 percent rate for several decades. And despite the record low public-opinion rating of Congress, the high re-election rate is not expected to change.

One explanation is that while most Americans give Congress a low rating, they think their own Representative and Senator is doing a decent job.

Another, more probable, explanation is that decades of gerrymandering has made most congressional seats “safe” or non-competitive. Redistricting, or gerrymandering, lets state lawmakers of the party in power carve up legislative districts to produce safe seats for one party or the other. It’s a co-consipracy in which Republicans draw district lines to include as many Republican voters as possible, while often creating safe Democratic districts nearby. And Democrats, when they redraw districts, do the same thing to create their own safe seats.

Another reason for high re-election rates is that incumbents have easy access to campaign money from lobbyists and special interest groups.

Clearly, challengers face a steep climb to knock off an incumbent. Yet, in many cases incumbents don’t want to risk an election, despite their big advantages in money and name recognition.

Gov. Tom Corbett, despite being considered one of the most vulnerable governors in the country, didn’t face a serious primary challenge in Montgomery County businessman Bob Guzzardi. Yet, Corbett’s campaign was successful in knocking Guzzardi off the ballot for a fairly technical issue involving the timing of Gunzardi’s filing his statements of financial interest.

In southern Butler County, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-12th, eliminated his primary challenger, Gordon Marburger, after legal action filed by apparent Metcalfe supporters pointed to a similary technical violation in Marburger’s filing of his statement of financial interests with the state Ethics Commission. Marburger claims he attached the financial form to his other filing documents and sent it to the Elections Bureau in Harrisburg. He claims bureau officials told him his paperwork was properly filed. A lower court ruled Marburger could remain on the ballot, but the state Supreme Court reversed that ruling. Now, Marburger is running as a write-in candidate.

Like every incumbent, Metcalfe has all the advantages in an election. Still, it appears knocking even a long-shot challenger off the ballot is preferred than actually facing an opponent in an election.

Though the conservative Metfalfe might not like the comparison, his campaign tactics are similar to those of Barack Obama, who as a candidate for the Illinois state Senate removed his three opponents, including the incumbent, from the ballot by challenging their voting petition signatures. Obama ran unopposed in the heavily Democratic district.

There are reportedly a few competitive legislative races in the eastern part of Pennsylvania. But a few of those races also cast a shadow over the General Assembly because four Democratic representatives running for re-election from the Philadelphia area got unwanted publicity after they were caught in a sting operation and recorded taking money from an informant. Only one of the four has a primary opponent. And even if the timing of the bribery scandal came late in the election process, it says some not very good things about Harrisburg politics that these candidates are running for re-election.

The May 20 primary is not generating much excitement, as expected. But some of the stories paint a discouraging picture of the state of politics in Pennsylvania and across the nation.