One Vote Counts

An election year is a period when all the Democrats and all the Republicans devote their time and energy to save the country from each other. It is often hard to know who to vote for in that many candidates have straddle sores. Their purpose is to stay calm, cool, and elected.

With all the faults of our system it is still the best in the world, offering many of the best qualified people to serve. There are many wonderful candidates deserving our encouragement and support. We should be thankful elections are by ballots not bullets and we count the returns, not the remains.

The two candidates for President have positions on each issue. Do you? If so, vote for the candidate whose positions and yours are most alike.

A person who is a one issue voter needs to consider they thereby are supporting all of the other issues espoused by that candidate. Therefore, a one issue voter really isn’t a one issue voter.

Why vote? Because your vote counts and can actually be the determining vote. Former President Eisenhower said, “The future of the Republic is in the hands of the voter….” In this statement he noted two great truths. First, our form of government is a Republic, not a Democracy. After all, in our pledge of allegiance it is to “the Republic for which it stands.” Second, the importance of the individual voter is brought into focus. It has often been one person that decided an election.

Adolf Hitler won the leadership of the Nazi Party in Germany in 1923 by one vote.

One vote gave the Presidency of the U.S. to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876.

In 1776 English, not German, was made the official language of America by one vote.

One vote gave control of England to Oliver Cromwell in 1656.

France was changed from a monarch to a republic by one vote.

By one vote the Pope was declared infallible.

By one vote Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Texas were each admitted to the United States.

The trend in America has been for special interest groups to register their constituency and get them out to vote. Though a minority in society they become a high percentage of voters. Many of these are motivated to vote for people who promise to give them their desires, their entitlements. In most instances that translates as “money.” The government has no money, therefore they must take it from the people who do and give it to those who elected them. It is a modern day form of buying votes. It is simply that the money doesn’t come from the candidates as it once did but from the public. Meanwhile the majority of those from whom the money must come don’t vote. By failing to vote they mute their voice. Their position is reduced by a factor of one.

Edward Everett Hale put the importance of the individual in perspective in these words:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. What I can do I ought to do. What I ought to do by the grace of God I will do.” We ought to vote. Never underestimate the power of one.

The door of America’s future swings on the hinge of the American voter.