WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: When Has a Single Vote Decided an Election?

0:00:01.890 --> 0:00:07.890
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, BrainStuff. Lauren

0:00:07.910 --> 0:00:11.970
<v Speaker 1>Vogelbaum here with a classic episode from our archives. In

0:00:11.990 --> 0:00:15.020
<v Speaker 1>this one, we get into why voting really does matter,

0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.300
<v Speaker 1>including a few of the rare times that an election

0:00:18.380 --> 0:00:20.880
<v Speaker 1>really has come down to a single vote here in

0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:27.979
<v Speaker 1>the United States. Hey, BrainStuff. Lauren Vogelbaum here. You've probably

0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.990
<v Speaker 1>heard the old truism that every vote counts. But judging

0:00:32.030 --> 0:00:35.250
<v Speaker 1>from the history of low voter participation in U.S. elections

0:00:35.370 --> 0:00:38.360
<v Speaker 1>compared with that in other developed countries, it seems that

0:00:38.420 --> 0:00:41.560
<v Speaker 1>many Americans haven't believed that casting a ballot for a

0:00:41.620 --> 0:00:45.510
<v Speaker 1>particular candidate or for a particular issue really matters that much.

0:00:46.950 --> 0:00:50.030
<v Speaker 1>In the case of the 2016 presidential election, this was

0:00:50.090 --> 0:00:54.340
<v Speaker 1>substantiated by a Pew Research Center survey in which 25%

0:00:54.340 --> 0:00:57.520
<v Speaker 1>of non-voters who were eligible to cast a ballot cited

0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.900
<v Speaker 1>my vote would not matter as the explanation for why

0:01:00.940 --> 0:01:04.000
<v Speaker 1>they abstained. That's nearly as high as the number who

0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.280
<v Speaker 1>said that they didn't vote because they didn't like either candidate, 26%,

0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.709
<v Speaker 1>and higher than the portion who had neglected to register

0:01:10.750 --> 0:01:12.110
<v Speaker 1>by the deadline, 22%. When it comes down to it,

0:01:15.450 --> 0:01:18.410
<v Speaker 1>the chances of a single voter casting what researchers call

0:01:18.430 --> 0:01:21.570
<v Speaker 1>a pivotal vote, that is, a single vote that swings

0:01:21.610 --> 0:01:26.370
<v Speaker 1>an election, are pretty remote. But it does happen. In

0:01:26.390 --> 0:01:30.090
<v Speaker 1>a 2001 study, University of Chicago economics professor Casey B.

0:01:30.130 --> 0:01:34.230
<v Speaker 1>Mulligan and business economic consultant Charles G. Hunter studied nearly

0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.779
<v Speaker 1>a century's worth of congressional election results and 21 years'

0:01:37.819 --> 0:01:42.660
<v Speaker 1>worth of state legislative election returns, nearly 57,000 elections in all,

0:01:42.940 --> 0:01:50.090
<v Speaker 1>not counting uncontested races. Out of the 16,577 federal elections studied,

0:01:50.570 --> 0:01:53.910
<v Speaker 1>only one was decided by a single vote. But the

0:01:53.950 --> 0:01:56.670
<v Speaker 1>researchers found seven state elections that came down to a

0:01:56.710 --> 0:02:00.590
<v Speaker 1>single ballot. As Mulligan wrote in a 2010 post for

0:02:00.610 --> 0:02:03.960
<v Speaker 1>the New York Times economics blog, the chances that a

0:02:04.020 --> 0:02:06.280
<v Speaker 1>voter will cast a ballot that will determine the winner

0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.520
<v Speaker 1>of a federal election is less than one in 100,000.

0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.380
<v Speaker 1>In state races, the odds increase to one in less

0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.630
<v Speaker 1>than 25,000. In local elections, where the electorate may be

0:02:17.730 --> 0:02:20.850
<v Speaker 1>in the few thousands or even hundreds, pivotal votes can

0:02:20.889 --> 0:02:25.450
<v Speaker 1>happen even more often. While nationwide data isn't available, in

0:02:25.570 --> 0:02:30.130
<v Speaker 1>Ohio alone, 14 races for office in 2015 resulted in

0:02:30.230 --> 0:02:33.609
<v Speaker 1>either a tie or a single-vote margin, according to the

0:02:33.690 --> 0:02:39.090
<v Speaker 1>Record Courier newspaper. We spoke with Mulligan via email. He

0:02:39.150 --> 0:02:43.650
<v Speaker 1>said the determine-the-winner incentive to vote is minuscule. Even in

0:02:43.690 --> 0:02:47.130
<v Speaker 1>a local election with, say, 2,000 votes, it's still only

0:02:47.230 --> 0:02:51.630
<v Speaker 1>a 1 in 1,000 chance. But even though one vote

0:02:51.710 --> 0:02:54.370
<v Speaker 1>has only a tiny chance of being the pivotal one

0:02:54.450 --> 0:02:58.910
<v Speaker 1>in an election, that doesn't mean that voting isn't important. Collectively,

0:02:59.250 --> 0:03:02.389
<v Speaker 1>votes matter a great deal. Certain groups in the population

0:03:02.410 --> 0:03:05.810
<v Speaker 1>that have higher turnout rates, such as older voters, the wealthy,

0:03:05.930 --> 0:03:09.060
<v Speaker 1>and white Americans, benefit from the clout that they achieve

0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.250
<v Speaker 1>as a result. We also spoke with Sean McElwee, an

0:03:13.310 --> 0:03:16.620
<v Speaker 1>analyst for Demos, which is a public policy organization that

0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.500
<v Speaker 1>works to reduce political and economic inequality in the United States.

0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.000
<v Speaker 1>He said, when gaps in turnout are smaller, policy is

0:03:25.060 --> 0:03:28.940
<v Speaker 1>more equitable. Even in deeply blue or red districts, vote

0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.280
<v Speaker 1>shares send important signals to representatives about their constituents. In

0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.640
<v Speaker 1>local elections, where turnout rates are often single-digit, Vote margins

0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.100
<v Speaker 1>are far narrower, and turnout is even more skewed against

0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:45.960
<v Speaker 1>people of color, young people, and low-income folks. Of course,

0:03:46.180 --> 0:03:49.100
<v Speaker 1>some of that turnout is influenced by citizens' access to voting,

0:03:49.460 --> 0:03:52.950
<v Speaker 1>including their ability to get correct and timely information about

0:03:53.010 --> 0:03:55.690
<v Speaker 1>ways for them to make their vote, and their ability

0:03:55.770 --> 0:03:58.130
<v Speaker 1>to actually get to the polls or send in an

0:03:58.230 --> 0:04:01.710
<v Speaker 1>absentee ballot. Many states and localities have been accused of

0:04:01.750 --> 0:04:05.740
<v Speaker 1>voter suppression. That is, purposefully making it difficult for people

0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.080
<v Speaker 1>from these demographics that are traditionally underrepresented at the polls

0:04:09.180 --> 0:04:12.750
<v Speaker 1>to start making themselves heard through voting. But that's a

0:04:12.750 --> 0:04:15.770
<v Speaker 1>different episode. Today, let's talk about a few of the

0:04:15.810 --> 0:04:19.710
<v Speaker 1>elections that were decided by a single vote. The only

0:04:19.770 --> 0:04:22.470
<v Speaker 1>congressional election to have been determined by a single vote

0:04:22.810 --> 0:04:26.310
<v Speaker 1>was the 1910 election for the 36th Congressional District of

0:04:26.370 --> 0:04:30.710
<v Speaker 1>New York. Democratic challenger Charles Bennett Smith, a newspaper editor

0:04:30.750 --> 0:04:35.610
<v Speaker 1>by trade and an advocate of prohibition, faced Republican incumbent D.S. Alexander.

0:04:36.410 --> 0:04:39.110
<v Speaker 1>According to a New York Times article from November 20th

0:04:39.130 --> 0:04:42.010
<v Speaker 1>of that year, after the initial counting of the returns,

0:04:42.310 --> 0:04:47.840
<v Speaker 1>the two candidates were tied at 2,684 votes each. But

0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.680
<v Speaker 1>the election board noticed an error in the total on

0:04:50.700 --> 0:04:54.260
<v Speaker 1>a tally sheet from one district. When it was corrected,

0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.380
<v Speaker 1>Smith received the single vote needed to elect him According

0:04:58.420 --> 0:05:01.440
<v Speaker 1>to his congressional biography, Smith became the chairman of the

0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.460
<v Speaker 1>House Committee on Foreign Affairs and was elected three more

0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:09.040
<v Speaker 1>times to Congress before losing a re-election bid in 1918.

0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.560
<v Speaker 1>But the city of Seat Pleasant, Maryland had one of

0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.950
<v Speaker 1>the strangest one-vote elections ever in the year 2000. It

0:05:15.410 --> 0:05:18.789
<v Speaker 1>was decided by a vote that wasn't cast. A woman

0:05:18.870 --> 0:05:20.650
<v Speaker 1>showed up at her polling place on the evening of

0:05:20.690 --> 0:05:23.910
<v Speaker 1>the election, and though she was registered to vote, her

0:05:23.970 --> 0:05:25.950
<v Speaker 1>name didn't show up in the records because she had

0:05:26.010 --> 0:05:30.380
<v Speaker 1>changed her address. Officials did not allow her to cast

0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.940
<v Speaker 1>a ballot for the candidate of her choice, Thurman D.

0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:39.150
<v Speaker 1>Jones Jr., and Jones lost the election 247-246 to incumbent

0:05:39.350 --> 0:05:43.470
<v Speaker 1>Eugene F. Kennedy. Jones later filed a lawsuit contesting the result,

0:05:43.930 --> 0:05:46.929
<v Speaker 1>but in a 2001 ruling, the Maryland Court of Appeals

0:05:47.070 --> 0:05:49.810
<v Speaker 1>overturned a lower court ruling and left Kennedy as the

0:05:49.830 --> 0:05:52.810
<v Speaker 1>winner because it had not been shown that fraud had

0:05:52.830 --> 0:05:58.080
<v Speaker 1>been committed. Then there's the case of the 2012 Democratic

0:05:58.140 --> 0:06:02.800
<v Speaker 1>primary for the 87th legislative district in Missouri. Because of redistricting,

0:06:03.020 --> 0:06:05.920
<v Speaker 1>Representative Stacey Newman was pitted in a primary against a

0:06:05.980 --> 0:06:10.730
<v Speaker 1>fellow legislator, Representative Susan Carlson. On election night, Newman prevailed

0:06:10.770 --> 0:06:12.250
<v Speaker 1>by a single vote, 1,823 to 1,822. But the St.

0:06:12.250 --> 0:06:20.890
<v Speaker 1>Louis County Election Board declined to certify the results. saying

0:06:20.910 --> 0:06:24.470
<v Speaker 1>that 102 voters at one polling place had mistakenly been

0:06:24.529 --> 0:06:27.960
<v Speaker 1>given ballots for a neighboring district. But in a do-over

0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.460
<v Speaker 1>primary seven weeks later, the result was unchanged. Newman again won,

0:06:32.740 --> 0:06:37.480
<v Speaker 1>this time by 95 votes. And in one instance, a

0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.420
<v Speaker 1>one-vote election result included a ballot cast by a deceased voter.

0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.820
<v Speaker 1>In 2011, in the village of Manilas, New York, A

0:06:45.860 --> 0:06:48.460
<v Speaker 1>man named Arnold Ferguson, who was the father of one

0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.670
<v Speaker 1>of the candidates for the village board, submitted an absentee

0:06:51.700 --> 0:06:55.090
<v Speaker 1>ballot ahead of Election Day, but then died three weeks

0:06:55.130 --> 0:06:58.950
<v Speaker 1>before the election. Election officials later admitted that Ferguson's vote

0:06:59.010 --> 0:07:01.650
<v Speaker 1>should not have been counted, but the state Supreme Court

0:07:01.770 --> 0:07:04.589
<v Speaker 1>ruled the ballot couldn't be challenged after it was removed

0:07:04.630 --> 0:07:08.150
<v Speaker 1>from its envelope. It's unclear what impact the ballot had

0:07:08.190 --> 0:07:11.370
<v Speaker 1>on the outcome, in which Harold Hopkinson won by a

0:07:11.430 --> 0:07:19.760
<v Speaker 1>single vote over Mark Baum. Today's episode is based on

0:07:19.780 --> 0:07:22.500
<v Speaker 1>the article, Six Times a Single Vote Really Did Change

0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.750
<v Speaker 1>an Election, on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Patrick J. Kiger. BrainStuff

0:07:26.790 --> 0:07:29.990
<v Speaker 1>is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com

0:07:30.170 --> 0:07:33.170
<v Speaker 1>and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more shows from

0:07:33.230 --> 0:07:37.500
<v Speaker 1>iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:38.860
<v Speaker 1>you listen to your favorite shows.