Do water board elections matter for utility performance?

Local water boards shape access to safe and affordable water. Elections for board members create incentives for officials to serve public interests. Yet, elections are not held if incumbents run unopposed. Despite governing water service for millions across the U.S. few empirical studies examine water boards and their electoral accountability. We examine the prevalence and consequences of uncontested elections across 176 water districts serving 9.7 million Californians from 2009 to 2020. Negative binomial regression analyzes the connection between prevalence of uncontested elections and local government fragmentation. To assess the relationship between elections and performance, we use probit regression to model the likelihood of water quality violations and low-income bill assistance. We find that uncontested elections are pervasive—57% of seats are unopposed—and are more common in districts that overlap municipalities, highlighting the accountability challenges of fragmented, polycentric governance. Contested elections matter for affordability polices; districts with fewer uncontested elections are more likely to adopt low-income bill assistance programs. In contrast, water quality compliance, which is heavily regulated, is not associated with electoral competition. These findings suggest that elections influence discretionary, redistributive policies. Accountability could be strengthened by addressing unearned incumbency and jurisdictional fragmentation.