Why is it so easy for Elsie Eiler of the town of Monowi, Nebraska USA, to continually get reelected as mayor?

Monowi, in Boyd County, Nebraska, is a somewhere far from anywhere. The town--if you can call it that; according to the US Census it's a "village"--sits smack-dab in the flat center of the continental United States, four miles from the South Dakota border and 60 miles from the nearest Walmart, surrounded by dirt roads that wind through rolling farmland. The 535-square-mile county has a population of just 2,000; three of its towns have fewer than 10 people. Only Monowi, though, has a claim to fame, one conveniently suggested by its pronunciation: "MONO-eye."

As the sole resident of a one-human town, Eiler wears a stupefying number of hats. She dutifully signs whatever paperwork the state sends her to secure funding — for water, for the electricity that keeps Monowi’s three street lamps lit, for road repairs — fulfilling different municipal roles with chameleon-like ease. She files taxes and collects them herself. She is Monowi’s mayor, perpetually unopposed; its secretary and clerk, applying for liquor and tobacco licenses and signing them herself; and the proprietress, cook, and bartender of the Monowi Tavern restaurant and bar. The tavern is the only business in Monowi, and running it is Eiler’s most important and longest-standing job. It’s been hers since June 1971...