Uncontested RVC Replacements

In the great debate about replacing RVCs mid-term...

It occurs to me that no one has brought up the sad fact that very often there is only one candidate for an office, and that person is declared elected without the members of that region actually casting any votes. I wonder how often this would occur with a full-regional special replacement election?

I don't remember the break down of why a regional special election will cost ~$5k, but if each region has about 5,000 people in it, to print, mail, and pay the counting house to count that many ballots would, very likely, cost around $1 a piece. But if you figure that the chances of those elections being uncontested as 60% (as was the case in the last election)... well, maybe that's not so bad, looking at the longer term financial picture.