Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogbamb here, You've probably heard the old truism that
Speaker 1: every vote counts. But judging from the history of low
Speaker 1: voter participation in US elections compared with that in other
Speaker 1: developed countries, it seems that many Americans haven't believed that
Speaker 1: casting a ballot for a particular candidate or for a
Speaker 1: particular issue really matters that much. In the case of
Speaker 1: the twenty six team presidential election, this was substantiated by
Speaker 1: a Pew Research Center survey in which of non voters
Speaker 1: who were eligible to cast a ballot cited my vote
Speaker 1: would not matter as the explanation for why they abstained.
Speaker 1: That's nearly as high as the number who said that
Speaker 1: they didn't vote because they didn't like either candidate, and
Speaker 1: higher than the portion who had neglected to register by
Speaker 1: the deadline. When it comes down to it, the chances
Speaker 1: of a single voter casting what searchers call a pivotal vote,
Speaker 1: that is, a single vote that swings an election are
Speaker 1: pretty remote, but it does happen. In a two thousand
Speaker 1: one study, University of Chicago economics professor K. C. B.
Speaker 1: Mulligan and business economic consultant Charles G. Hunter studied nearly
Speaker 1: a century's worth of congressional election results and twenty one
Speaker 1: years worth the state legislative election returns, nearly fifty seven
Speaker 1: thousand elections at all, not counting uncontested races. Out of
Speaker 1: the sixteen thousand, five hundred and seventy seven federal elections studied,
Speaker 1: only one was decided by a single vote, but the
Speaker 1: researchers found seven state elections that came down to a
Speaker 1: single ballot. As Mulligan wrote in a post for the
Speaker 1: New York Times Economics blog, the chances that a voter
Speaker 1: will cast a ballot that will determine the winner of
Speaker 1: a federal election is less than one in one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: In state races, the odds increased to one in less
Speaker 1: than twenty five thousand. In local elections, where the electorate
Speaker 1: may be in the few thousands or even hundreds, Pivotal
Speaker 1: votes can happen even more often. While nationwide data isn't available.
Speaker 1: In Ohio alone, fourteen races for office in resulted in
Speaker 1: either a tie or a single vote margin, according to
Speaker 1: the Record Courier newspaper. We spoke with Mulligan via email.
Speaker 1: He said that determined the winner, incentive to vote is minuscule.
Speaker 1: Even in a local election with say two thousand votes,
Speaker 1: it's still only a one in one thousand chance. But
Speaker 1: even though one vote has only a tiny chance of
Speaker 1: being deep pivotal one in an election, that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that voting isn't important. Collectively, votes matter a great deal.
Speaker 1: Certain groups in the population that have higher turnout rates,
Speaker 1: such as older voters, the wealthy, and white Americans, benefit
Speaker 1: from the clout that they achieve as a result. But
Speaker 1: we also spoke with Sean McElwee, an analyst for Demos,
Speaker 1: which is a public policy organization that works to reduce
Speaker 1: plitical and economic inequality in the United States. He said,
Speaker 1: when gaps in turn out are smaller, policies more equitable.
Speaker 1: Even in deeply blue or red districts, vote shares send
Speaker 1: important signals to representatives about their constituents. In local elections
Speaker 1: where turnout rates are often single digit, vote margins are
Speaker 1: far narrower, and turnout is even more skewed against people
Speaker 1: of color, young people, and low income folks. Of course,
Speaker 1: some of that turnout is influenced by citizens access to voting,
Speaker 1: including their ability to get correct and timely information about
Speaker 1: ways for them to make their vote and their ability
Speaker 1: to actually get to the polls or send in an
Speaker 1: absentee ballot. Many states and localities have been accused of
Speaker 1: voter suppression that is purposefully making it difficult for people
Speaker 1: from these demographics that are traditionally underrepresented at the polls
Speaker 1: to start making themselves heard through voting. But that's a
Speaker 1: different episode. Today, let's talk about a few of the
Speaker 1: elections that were decided by single vote. The only congressional
Speaker 1: election to have been determined by a single vote was
Speaker 1: the nineteen ten election for the thirty six Congressional district
Speaker 1: of New York. Democratic challenger Charles Bennett Smith, a newspaper
Speaker 1: editor by trade and an advocate of prohibition, faced Republican
Speaker 1: incumbent D. S. Alexander. According to a New York Times
Speaker 1: article from November twentie of that year, after the initial
Speaker 1: counting of the returns, the two candidates were tied at
Speaker 1: two thousand, six hundred and eighty four votes each, but
Speaker 1: the election board noticed an error in the total on
Speaker 1: a tally sheet from one district. When it was corrected,
Speaker 1: Smith received the single vote needed to elect him According
Speaker 1: to his Congressional biography, Smith became the chairman of the
Speaker 1: House Committee on Foreign Affairs and was elected three more
Speaker 1: times to Congress before losing a re election bid in
Speaker 1: nineteen eight. But the city of seat Pleasant, Maryland, had
Speaker 1: one of the strangest one vote elections ever in the
Speaker 1: year two thousand. It was decided by a vote that
Speaker 1: wasn't cast. A woman showed up at her polling place
Speaker 1: on the evening of the election, and though she was
Speaker 1: registered to vote, her name didn't show up in the
Speaker 1: records because she had changed her address. Officials did not
Speaker 1: allow her to cast a ballot for the candidate of
Speaker 1: her choice, Thurman D. Jones Jr. And Jones lost the
Speaker 1: election two hundred and forty seven to two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty six to incumbent Eugene F. Kennedy. Jones later filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit contesting the result, but in a two thousand
Speaker 1: one ruling, the Maryland Court of Appeals overturned a lower
Speaker 1: court ruling and left Kennedy as the winner because it
Speaker 1: had not been shown that fraud had been committed. Then
Speaker 1: there's the case of the twelve Democratic primary for the
Speaker 1: eighty seventh Legislative district in Missouri because of redistricting, Representative
Speaker 1: Stacy Newman was pitted in a primary against a fellow legislator,
Speaker 1: Representative Susan Carlson. On election night, Newman prevailed by a
Speaker 1: single vote, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty three to
Speaker 1: one thousand, eight hundred and twenty two, but the St.
Speaker 1: Louis County Election Board declined to certify the results, saying
Speaker 1: that a hundred and two voters at one polling place
Speaker 1: had mistakenly been given ballots for a neighboring district. But
Speaker 1: in a do over primary seven weeks later, the result
Speaker 1: was unchanged. Newman again won, this time by votes, and
Speaker 1: in one instance, a one vote election result included a
Speaker 1: ballot cast by a deceased voter. In two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: in the village of Manilis, New York, a man named
Speaker 1: Arnold Ferguson, who was the father of one of the
Speaker 1: candidates for the village board, submitted an absentee ballot ahead
Speaker 1: of election day, but then died three weeks before the election.
Speaker 1: Election officials later admitted that Ferguson's vote should not have
Speaker 1: been counted, but the state Supreme Court ruled the ballot
Speaker 1: couldn't be challenged after it was removed from its envelope.
Speaker 1: It's unclear what impact the ballot had on the outcome,
Speaker 1: in which Harold Hopkinson won by a single vote over
Speaker 1: Mark Baum. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Kaiger
Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on list and
Speaker 1: lots of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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