Election Cycle

Some people may have seen an e-mail (or in the case of the election cycle two years ago, I received these mailed to me on campaign literature) with the following fallacies:

** In 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England.
** In 1649, one vote caused Charles I of England to be executed.
** In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead of German.
** In 1845, one vote brought Texas into the Union.
** In 1875, one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic.
** In 1923, one vote gave Adolf Hitler leadership of the Nazi Party.
** In 1941, one vote saved Selective Service – just weeks before Pearl Harbor was attacked.

None of those events actually happened. But, not to dishearten those who want to know the value of their vote, the following one vote events are, in fact, true:

** Andrew Johnson retained his office by one vote. The final tally against him was 35 to 19, but a two-thirds majority of the votes cast was needed to oust him from office, thus a 36-to-18 result was required. [The vote was not to impeach Johnson (which had already been done); the vote was to remove him from office. Folks have come to think of these terms as interchangeable, but they’re not. President Clinton was recently impeached, but he was not removed from office either.]

** In 1839, Marcus “Landslide” Morton was indeed elected governor of Massachusetts by one vote. Of the 102,066 votes cast by the good people of that state, he received exactly 51,034. Had his count been 51,033, the election would have been thrown into the Legislature, where he probably would not have won. [“Landslide” also made the record books in 1842 when he won the same office again by one vote, this time in the Legislature. In those days, Massachusetts governors were elected for terms of one year.]

So, to those readers in the United States… Go vote on Tuesday!