Theory of Incremental Advantage

President Andrew Johnson Was Nearly Impeached

There was extensive debate about impeaching President Andrew Johnson in the Senate during the ten weeks, from March 5 to May 16, 1868. In the end, President escaped conviction by a lone vote.

Reagan Nearly Won Minnesota in 1984

In the Presidential election of 1984, Ronald Reagan won every state except Walter Mondale's homestate of Minnesota. President Reagan came within 3,100 votes of carrying Minnesota. That state has only 3,200 election precincts; thus, Reagan lost it by less than one vote per precinct. Of course, history really would not have been changed had Reagan carried Minnesota.

Every Last Vote Counted in the Presidential Election of 1960

The Democratic National Committee just narrowly ratified John Kennedy for its candidate for the presidency in 1960. John's brother Robert who was running the campaign left nothing to chance. He counted and recounted every delegate. Robert knew the Democratic nominee would only win by a whisker. During the Democratic Convention, the state delegates voted in alphabetical order. Robert sent Ted Kennedy to go to the Wyoming delegates and get them to promise that if the Kennedy campaign needed the Wyoming delegates that the Kennedy campaign would receive them.

The Wyoming chairman said, "You must be crazy. The vote will be decided before Wyoming casts its vote. We already are pledging 10-1/2 votes. Are you saying to me that you think the winner will be chosen by those four votes? That'll make, really, the difference in your brother getting the nomination?" "Well, Yes," he said, "If it comes to those four votes, you've got them. I'll take them right away from Lyndon Johnson. You've got them."

Without the four remaining votes cast by the Wyoming delegation, Lyndon Johnson would have been the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States in 1960.

One Vote May Have Decided World War II

Congress reauthorized pre-World War II military conscription by a single vote. This narrow reauthorization resulted in a massive military build-up in the United States. Soon, the United States had over 12 million men and women in uniform - surpassing all other powers, even Russia. During World War II, one in eleven Americans was serving in the military compared to one in two hundred in active duty in 2007. The sheer mass of American soldiers resulting from conscription gave the Allied Powers an important advantage over the Axis forces.

4,000 Votes Determined the Fate of World War I

Woodrow Wilson won reelection over Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in 1916 by gaining California's 13 electoral votes. President Wilson's win in California was by a narrow 4,000 votes. The timing of America's involvement and the outcome of World War I could have been radically different if Mr. Hughes won the election of 1916.

Importance of One Vote

• The tally for voting for the Declaration of Independence was close. Congress had to wait for uninstructed delegates to return to Philadelphia. Caesar Rodney, suffering from asthma and cancer, rode 80 miles from his Delaware home to the sweltering capital on the night of July 1, 1776, in order to break a tie in his state’s delegation and carry the motion for independence.
• In 1783, Congress failed by one vote to adopt Thomas Jefferson’s motion to ban slavery forever from the trans-Appalachian west.
• In the summer of 1842, Henry Shoemaker nearly missed voting for a state representative. His vote later proved to be a contested ballot. There wasn’t a ticket available listing all the candidates Shoemaker wanted to vote for, so he took out his knife and cut out names from four different tickets in order to cast his ballot. At that time, state legislators elected U.S. senators. In January of 1843, Madison Marsh who Shoemaker helped to elect, changed his vote on the sixth ballot, electing Democrat Edward Hannegan to the United States Senate…by one vote. In 1846, a caucus vote in the U.S. Senate was deadlocked until the absent Senator Hannegan was called. He cast his vote in favor of war. One of the results of that war was that California changed hands from Mexico to the United States.
• In addition to California, one vote gave statehood to Texas (1845), Oregon (1859), Washington (1889), and Idaho (1890).
• 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.

National Sovereignty is Determined by a Few Voters

A referendum took place in Quebec on October 30, 1995, and the motion to pursue Quebec's independence was defeated by an extremely small margin, 50.58% "No" to 49.42% "Yes".

World Leaders are Elected by a Handful of Voters

• In the 2000 Presidential Election, President Bush’s margin of victory over Al Gore was 154 votes in Florida, which enabled the former to edge out the latter with four electoral votes. In the waning months of 2000, the fate of the nation, if not the world, literally hung on a few dangling chads.
• 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.
• One electoral vote kept Aaron Burr from becoming President. That one vote elected Thomas Jefferson in 1800.