So you think your vote isn’t important!
Don’t make the mistake of staying away from the polls Tuesday because YOUR VOTE COULD BE THE BIG ONE!
In 1953, George Scott was elected mayor of American Fork, receiving 885 votes to 884 for Walter B. Devey. One vote decided the election.
There have been many other hair-breadth vote margins in local, county and state contests. Oft-times it has taken an official canvass of the votes to decide a contest. This was the use in the State senate race in 1962 between Wallace H. Gardner of Spanish Fork and Harvard Hinton of Lehi. Gardner won by 11 votes.
There have been other examples of close contests when a few votes might have changed the result. Once a write-in candidate won a Provo school board election when most voters thought there was no need to go to the polls to support the lone official candidate.
What about presidential elections in which millions of ballots are cast?
Your vote is still important. Just one vote per precinct could decide who’ll be president of the United States. It’s happened before:
-W0odrow Wilson carried California by 3806 votes out of nearly one million cast in 1916. That did it. Less than one per cent per precinct in one state swung the presidential election.
-In 1948 Harry S. Truman carried Ohio by only 7107 votes out of nearly three million cast and California by only 17,865 votes out of about four million cast. These votes were enough to add 50 electoral votes. A difference of less than one vote per precinct in Ohio and California would have switched these votes to the Dewey column, throwing the decision into the House of Representatives.
-John F. Kennedy barely topped Richard Nixon in 1960 with a national plurality of only 112,253 votes out of 69 million cast – a margin of less than one vote per precinct.
Yes, your vote is important. Use it intelligently Tuesday to help decide important county, state and national contests.