(Cushing) – Many people who cast ballots on election day have gone to the polls thinking that a single wouldn’t have made a difference. Their vote doesn’t count for much, so why bother?
Most elections are decisive, and in a lot of cases, a single vote may not have made much of a difference in the outcome. Sometimes though, one or two votes DO make a difference.
In the case of the Cushing City Commission race on Tuesday, two votes made a difference. Incumbent Lynda Smith finished with 242 votes, out of 488 votes cast. That’s two votes under fifty per cent.
As I understand it, fifty per cent plus one is the requirement to avoid a run off, but it may actually be just fifty per cent. In either event, Smith would have won the election out right had she received one more vote….and there had been one less ballot cast.
In other words a single vote difference wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but two definitely would have.
Smith will now face Jim Hogrefe in the April 1st General Election. Hogrefe recieved 101 votes on Tuesday, less than half of the number received by Smith.
If all the people who voted for a candidate other than Smith on Tuesday cast their ballot for Hogrefe on April 1st, and all the people who cast ballots for Smith vote for her again, Hogrefe would win by 4 votes.
But that isn’t how elections work. April 1st is a whole different election. It may or may not have as good a turnout. People who voted for another candidate now no longer in the race may decide to vote for Smith. Or not. Or people can change their minds, and vote this time for Hogrefe. Somebody may have marked a ballot wrong on Tuesday. Somebody could mark a ballot wrong on April 1st.
Really, it’s all conjecture, at the end of the election, what counts is who received what. But if you think that a single vote doesn’t count look at the outcome of Tuesdays Cushing election and remember this: You and one other person who believes the same thing may well have made the difference on Tuesday.
And you could do it again on April 1st.
***
