The power of one vote

[Jess1483]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 8:51am

This was in my hometown's local paper:

You think your one vote doesn't matter? That's not true. The entire course of a nation can turn on the power of one vote.

History is full of stories of single votes that changed everything. One of our favorites here in Montana was the 1990 Democratic primary for Carbon County attorney. Gary Spaeth lost by a tie vote and a coin toss. After the flip, Spaeth's brother told him he never made it to the polls. Spaeth will preach forever, he said afterward, "Every vote counts."

Another favorite: In 1844 in Switzerland County, Ind., ailing farmer Freeman Clark had his sons carry him from his bed to the county seat to vote for David Kelso, a Democrat, for state senator. Kelso was a lawyer who had once defended Clark on a murder charge and won an acquittal. Clark voted, then died on the way home. Kelso won by one vote. When the new state Senate convened post-election, it had a majority of Democrats - by one.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for president in the Electoral College. That sent the election into the House of Representatives, where a one-vote margin elected Thomas Jefferson as the third U.S. president. In 1824, none of the four presidential candidates won a majority of the Electoral College votes. The vote again went to the House, where John Quincy Adams won by squeaking by Andrew Jackson by one vote.

Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon and Texas all won statehood by one-vote margins. And speaking of Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson became a U.S. senator by one vote in 1948. The rest of that story is history. John F. Kennedy became president in 1960 by beating Richard Nixon by less than one vote per precinct. Had a small number of voters stayed home, JFK might never have been president, and Nixon would have moved into the White House eight years earlier than he did.

www.missoulian.com

Also, the absentee ballot number for Montana is 11,000 and the previous record is 6,000. So I hope that's true across the board, because it seems to me that means more students are voting absentee, which is obviously good for the Democratic party.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 9:04am

The election of 1800 was voted on 31 times before the tie could be broken and that is mostly due to Alexander Hamiltons skillfull influence behind the scenes by telling Jefferson (whom he didn't care for, thankfully for Jefferson, Hamilton despised Burr) that he would give him the Federalist votes he needed if he promised to not be to revolutionary a President (which he wasn't).

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 9:07am

These are the trials of a generation shamrockboy. You make an excellent point.

[megannn33]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 9:36am

the power of one vote..

..doesn't do much unless you are an electoral college member.. or you live in maine..

[lovettespies]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 9:41am

What's with the pessimism megan? Every vote does matter. maybe you should research a little more on how those electoral votes are decided and what happened last election in Florida.

[megannn33]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 9:45am

well in maine i know that whoever has 55%(i think 55) of the vote that's who they're electoral college members vote for. but i don't know we were talking a lot about it in history and i just find it kind of silly.. i mean they say they give us this right to vote but really they don't. so those people who fought to have african-americans vote and women.. it was kind of wasted. people died for it but yet congress thinks america is too dumb to pick their own president.. whatever.

**don't worry i will vote when i'm 18.
***and i don't want to start a big thing out of this i just wondered why others think it's really important. Updated On: 11/2/04 at 09:45 AM