Decided by One Vote: Difference between revisions

* The plot of the musical ''[[1776 (musical)|1776]]'' hinges on obtaining unanimous ratification for the Declaration of Independence by all 13 colonies (less New York, which abstains – [[Running Gag|courteously]] – in the absence of instructions from their legislature). ''Two'' of the delegations are split and require extraordinary means to break ties (though historically all the delegations were larger than depicted). First, Delaware's split is broken by dragging back Caesar Rodney (70-odd years old and cancer-ridden); Pennsylvania is swung when pro-independence Ben Franklin asks to poll individual delegates, at which point James Wilson changes sides. In the musical, he claims to desire relative anonymity rather than be remembered as the man who prevented American Independence; historically, Wilson did break the tie, but (as the creators admit in the DVD commentary track) no one really knew why at the time they wrote. (Subsequent historical investigation revealed that he had been playing it safe until he could query his constituents on the issue, and then changed his vote to match what they wanted.)

** Historically, it was less that Wilson broke the tie, but that John Dickinson stayed home that day, refusing to vote for something that he did not believe in, but willing to allow the vote to pass as it appeared to be the will of the country. However, the play needed Dickinson as a [[Hate Sink]], so he was portrayed as being present for the vote.

This occasionally happens in real life (but not nearly as often as [http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/onevote.asp oft-repeated chain letters] would have you believe). Also, note that ''all'' real-life examples - or at least, all real-life examples listed on this page so far - involve voting in parliamentary or representative bodies.<ref>[[Canadian Politics]] ''almost'' had an election that would have qualified: Anne "[[Ironic Nickname|Landslide Annie]]" McLellan was [https://web.archive.org/web/20210321021339/https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/19/how-one-vote-made-a-difference-in-the-1993-federal-election_n_8333306.html believed to have been elected by a single vote in 1993], but a recount showed that she'd won by twelve votes.</ref> Given a voting population of a few dozen or even a few hundred people, and/or candidates chosen by parties, even a completely random vote would be '''Decided by One Vote''' once in a while. And elections aren't completely random in ways that make close calls more likely. However, the odds of a general election with a constituency of thousands or millions of people being '''Decided by One Vote''' is ''extremely'' slim.