YOUR VOTE MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Your vote does make a difference--whether on the National, State, or Local level. Many races have been won by few votes:

• John Kennedy won the presidency in 1960 by just one vote per precinct in Illinois. One voter in each precinct could have changed the election, giving Nixon 26 electoral votes in Illinois and consequently electing him President.
  
• Marcus Monton was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1839 by one vote out of 102,066 cast.
  
• In 1996 Ron Wyden won election to the U.S. Senate from Oregon to replace former Senator Robert Packwood. He won by one percent of the vote.
  
• One vote gave statehood to Texas (1845), California (1850), Oregon (1859), Washington (1889), and Idaho (1890).
  
• One vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment conviction in 1868.
  
• One vote elected Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency in 1876, and the man in the Electoral College who cast that vote was an Indiana Congressman elected by one vote.
  
• In 1950, a State Senator from Garrett County, Maryland was elected by one vote. The winner had 3,080. The loser, 3,079.
  
• One vote kept Aaron Burr from becoming President. That one vote elected Thomas Jefferson in 1800.
  
• Women won the right to vote in 1920 by passage of the 19th amendment to the Constitution. Tennessee, the last state needed to pass the amendment, ratified the amendment by one vote.
  
• In the 1974 New Hampshire Senatorial race, Louis Wyman appeared to be the winner by 542 votes. But after a recount, John Durkin was certified the winner by 10 votes. Still later, the decision was reversed and Wyman was declared the winner by two votes. After a year of court battles and controversy, a special election was held and Durkin won.
  
• In 1923, one vote made Adolph Hitler head of the Nazi party.
  
• Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1916 by carrying one state by less than one vote per precinct.
  
• In 1978, a tie vote in a race for the Pennsylvania Legislature resulted in neither party having a majority. A recount broke the tie and gave control of the House to the Democrats.

Many contests in Massachusetts have been decided by very few votes. A few examples are:

• In Boston with 147,743 voters turning out, only five votes separated the winner of a City Council seat and the runner-up loser.
  
• A candidate for a seat on the Canton School Committee won by only one vote. A recount gave him one more vote and affirmed his election. In Hanson also, the School Committee race was decided by two votes.
  
• A Selectman won by three votes in Arlington and three communities, Scituate, Millis, and Lee, each elected a Selectman by a one-vote margin.
  
• And in Greenfield, a Town Meeting Member won by only one.

For more information on how to make a difference with YOUR vote, see
Voting in Massachusetts.

League of Women Voters of Massachusetts
Citizen Education Fund
Lotte E Scharfman Memorial Fund
133 Portland Street, Boston, MA 02114
Phone: (617) 523-2999 - Fax: (617) 248-0881
e-mail lwvma@ma.lwv.org
Voter Information
(800) 882-1649 or (617) 723-1421
Revised 2000