When Has a Single Vote Decided an Election?

particular issue really matters that much. In the case of the twenty six team presidential election, this was substantiated by a Pew Research Center survey in which of non voters who were eligible to cast a ballot cited my vote would not matter as the explanation for why they abstained. That's nearly as high as the number who said that they didn't vote because they didn't like either candidate, and higher than the portion who had neglected to register by

the deadline. When it comes down to it, the chances of a single voter casting what searchers call a pivotal vote, that is, a single vote that swings an election are pretty remote, but it does happen. In a two thousand one study, University of Chicago economics professor K. C. B. Mulligan and business economic consultant Charles G. Hunter studied nearly a century's worth of congressional election results and twenty one years worth the state legislative election returns, nearly fifty seven

thousand elections at all, not counting uncontested races. Out of the sixteen thousand, five hundred and seventy seven federal elections studied, only one was decided by a single vote, but the researchers found seven state elections that came down to a single ballot. As Mulligan wrote in a post for the New York Times Economics blog, the chances that a voter will cast a ballot that will determine the winner of a federal election is less than one in one hundred thousand.

In state races, the odds increased to one in less than twenty five thousand. In local elections, where the electorate may be in the few thousands or even hundreds, Pivotal votes can happen even more often. While nationwide data isn't available. In Ohio alone, fourteen races for office in resulted in either a tie or a single vote margin, according to the Record Courier newspaper. We spoke with Mulligan via email. He said that determined the winner, incentive to vote is minuscule.

Even in a local election with say two thousand votes, it's still only a one in one thousand chance. But even though one vote has only a tiny chance of being deep pivotal one in an election, that doesn't mean that voting isn't important. Collectively, votes matter a great deal. Certain groups in the population that have higher turnout rates, such as older voters, the wealthy, and white Americans, benefit

from the clout that they achieve as a result. But we also spoke with Sean McElwee, an analyst for Demos, which is a public policy organization that works to reduce plitical and economic inequality in the United States. He said, when gaps in turn out are smaller, policies more equitable. Even in deeply blue or red districts, vote shares send

important signals to representatives about their constituents. In local elections where turnout rates are often single digit, vote margins are far narrower, and turnout is even more skewed against people of color, young people, and low income folks. Of course, some of that turnout is influenced by citizens access to voting, including their ability to get correct and timely information about ways for them to make their vote and their ability to actually get to the polls or send in an

absentee ballot. Many states and localities have been accused of voter suppression that is purposefully making it difficult for people from these demographics that are traditionally underrepresented at the polls to start making themselves heard through voting. But that's a different episode. Today, let's talk about a few of the

elections that were decided by single vote. The only congressional election to have been determined by a single vote was the nineteen ten election for the thirty six Congressional district of New York. Democratic challenger Charles Bennett Smith, a newspaper editor by trade and an advocate of prohibition, faced Republican

incumbent D. S. Alexander. According to a New York Times article from November twentie of that year, after the initial counting of the returns, the two candidates were tied at two thousand, six hundred and eighty four votes each, but the election board noticed an error in the total on

a tally sheet from one district. When it was corrected, Smith received the single vote needed to elect him According to his Congressional biography, Smith became the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and was elected three more times to Congress before losing a re election bid in nineteen eight. But the city of seat Pleasant, Maryland, had one of the strangest one vote elections ever in the year two thousand. It was decided by a vote that

wasn't cast. A woman showed up at her polling place on the evening of the election, and though she was registered to vote, her name didn't show up in the records because she had changed her address. Officials did not allow her to cast a ballot for the candidate of her choice, Thurman D. Jones Jr. And Jones lost the election two hundred and forty seven to two hundred and

forty six to incumbent Eugene F. Kennedy. Jones later filed a lawsuit contesting the result, but in a two thousand one ruling, the Maryland Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling and left Kennedy as the winner because it had not been shown that fraud had been committed. Then there's the case of the twelve Democratic primary for the eighty seventh Legislative district in Missouri because of redistricting, Representative Stacy Newman was pitted in a primary against a fellow legislator,

Representative Susan Carlson. On election night, Newman prevailed by a single vote, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty three to one thousand, eight hundred and twenty two, but the St. Louis County Election Board declined to certify the results, saying that a hundred and two voters at one polling place had mistakenly been given ballots for a neighboring district. But in a do over primary seven weeks later, the result

was unchanged. Newman again won, this time by votes, and in one instance, a one vote election result included a ballot cast by a deceased voter. In two thousand eleven, in the village of Manilis, New York, a man named Arnold Ferguson, who was the father of one of the candidates for the village board, submitted an absentee ballot ahead of election day, but then died three weeks before the election.

Election officials later admitted that Ferguson's vote should not have been counted, but the state Supreme Court ruled the ballot couldn't be challenged after it was removed from its envelope. It's unclear what impact the ballot had on the outcome, in which Harold Hopkinson won by a single vote over Mark Baum. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Kaiger and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on list and lots of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.

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