Utah town forgets to hold election

The mayor of a tiny town in Utah has been re-elected by default after officials forgot to hold an election this month.

Perhaps the mayor of Wallsburg, Jay Hortin, was too busy with his other job as an electrician in the town of about 275 to realize he was supposed to have been campaigning this November. But he wasn't alone: the city staffer in charge of running elections forgot too, and so did all four councillors, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, which first reported the story on Tuesday.

This is the second election Wallsburg has skipped, leading the same mayor and councillors to stay in office for another two years by default.

[ Related: Bobby Tufts, aged 4, re-elected as mayor in Dorset, Minn. ]

The Wasatch County clerk, Brent Titcomb, told the Associated Press the leaders didn't skip the election as part of any secret plot to grip power over the sleepy town for a while longer; they simply didn't realize it was time to cast the ballots.

"Close to the election day, they called to ask what they should do," Titcomb told the AP.

A resident told the Associated Press Hortin might not have had any competition for the mayoral post anyway, noting that Wallsburg is largely a town of commuters who work in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.

Nonetheless, Titcomb says that 2015 will be an election year for Wallsburg, and next time, the town won't forget to vote.