diff --git a/src/Text/Pandoc/Writers/HTML.hs b/src/Text/Pandoc/Writers/HTML.hs
index 576a21dd7..b3320fa06 100644
--- a/src/Text/Pandoc/Writers/HTML.hs
+++ b/src/Text/Pandoc/Writers/HTML.hs
@@ -178,7 +178,6 @@ inTemplate opts tit auths date toc body' newvars =
(case toc of
Just t -> [ ("toc", showHtmlFragment t)]
Nothing -> []) ++
- [ ("ascii","true") | writerAscii opts ] ++
[ ("author", a) | a <- authors ]
in renderTemplate context $ writerTemplate opts
diff --git a/templates/html.template b/templates/html.template
index 3f0e41679..3f8b76fed 100644
--- a/templates/html.template
+++ b/templates/html.template
@@ -7,17 +7,9 @@ $else$
$endif$
<head>
$if(html5)$
-$if(ascii)$
- <meta charset="us-ascii" />
-$else$
<meta charset="utf-8" />
-$endif$
-$else$
-$if(ascii)$
- <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii" />
$else$
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
-$endif$
$endif$
<meta name="generator" content="pandoc" />
$for(author)$