A pulldown resistor seems to always be used for configurations where when the switch is open the normal state is low.
For example
The reasons always given are to avoid a short between voltage and ground when the circuit is closed, and also to avoid the input floating when the switch is open.
I understand the first point about the short but why would the input still be floating if we did in fact short it to ground and didn't use a pulldown resistor? Can someone explain? Wouldn't the noise / random charges have a path of least resistance to go into just the same as with a pulldown resistor?