diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 43ca2e728..5d787cd45 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: animint2
 Title: Animated Interactive Grammar of Graphics
-Version: 2026.2.28
+Version: 2026.3.2
 URL: https://animint.github.io/animint2
 BugReports: https://github.com/animint/animint2/issues
 Authors@R: c(
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ Authors@R: c(
      comment="Animint2 GSoC 2025"),
     person("Gaurav", "Chaudhary",
      role="ctb",
-     comment="Remove unused css.file parameter; fix issue #233 selector values; fix issue #273 update_axes tick font-size; fix issue #276 update_axes transition duration"))
+     comment="Remove unused css.file parameter; fix issue #233 selector values; fix issue #273 update_axes tick font-size; fix issue #276 update_axes transition duration; #278 Removed unnecessary Selectors.hasOwnProperty checks in animint.js"))
 Description: Functions are provided for defining animated,
  interactive data visualizations in R code, and rendering
  on a web page. The 2018 Journal of Computational and 
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 6184d117b..f56eb79fb 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+# Changes in version 2026.3.2 (PR#306)
+
+- `animint.js`: Remove unnecessary `Selectors.hasOwnProperty` checks (issue #278).
+  Selector names are always valid when accessed, so membership checks are redundant.
+
 # Changes in version 2025.12.4 (PR#277)
 
 - `update_axes`: Fix issue #276 where transition duration was hardcoded to 1000ms. Now it respects the selector's duration.
diff --git a/inst/htmljs/animint.js b/inst/htmljs/animint.js
index bfcc4b07f..1686596ff 100644
--- a/inst/htmljs/animint.js
+++ b/inst/htmljs/animint.js
@@ -1567,7 +1567,7 @@ var animint = function (to_select, json_file) {
           eActions = function(groups) {
             // Handle transitions seperately due to unique structure of geom_label_aligned
             var transitionDuration = 0;
-            if (Selectors.hasOwnProperty(selector_name)) {
+            if(selector_name && Selectors.hasOwnProperty(selector_name) && Selectors[selector_name].hasOwnProperty("duration")){
               transitionDuration = +Selectors[selector_name].duration || 0;
             }
             groups.each(function(d) {
@@ -1863,7 +1863,7 @@ var animint = function (to_select, json_file) {
           positionTooltip(tooltip, tooltip.html());
         });
     }
-    if(Selectors.hasOwnProperty(selector_name)){
+    if(selector_name && Selectors.hasOwnProperty(selector_name) && Selectors[selector_name].hasOwnProperty("duration")){
       var milliseconds = Selectors[selector_name].duration;
       elements = elements.transition().duration(milliseconds);
     }
@@ -2088,9 +2088,6 @@ var animint = function (to_select, json_file) {
   }
 
   var update_selector = function (v_name, value) {
-    if(!Selectors.hasOwnProperty(v_name)){
-      return;
-    }
     value = value + "";
     var s_info = Selectors[v_name];
     if(s_info.type == "single"){