Recent polls predict this election will be a cliffhanger from top to bottom.  Both major parties are bracing for massive vote fraud and preparing cadres of attorneys to monitor hot spots.   

To remind you of what's at stake, here's a short list:

• The Presidency of the United States
• Control of the U.S. House and Senate
• Approximately One Hundred Vacant Federal Judgeships
• Three Potential Appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court
• The Continued Success of Family Friendly Public Policy

Whoever is elected President will appoint three Supreme Court judges and 100 federal judges to serve life terms.  In other words, this election will decide our children's future. 

Races Won or Lost by One Vote

Several years ago I managed a congressional campaign in which the candidate lost by only 1,200 votes.  We later discovered that 1,200 votes had been invalidated in one county either by machine error or by the voters themselves (e.g. mistakenly voting for both candidates in a single race).   If only one more citizen had voted, that vote would have changed the outcome of the election.  What a heartbreaking experience. 

Imagine the heartbreak and joy in the following campaigns:

·          In 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected President of the United States, by one vote.

·          In 1820, President James Monroe lost re-election by one vote.   

·          In 1846, one vote decided on going to war with Mexico.

·          In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the Presidency by one vote.

·          In 1941, one vote saved selective service - weeks before Pearl Harbor was attacked.

·          In 1960, John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by less than one vote per precinct. 

·          In 1962, one vote per precinct elected governors in Maine, Rhode Island and North Dakota.

·          In 1978, the Equal Rights Amendment failed in the Illinois State Legislature by one vote. 

·          In 1981, one vote prevented the ERA from passing as a Constitutional Amendment. 

·          In 2000, George W. Bush won the Presidency by taking Florida with less than one vote per precinct.

Where are the Mormons?

We are not in an imaginary cultural war.  It is real.  On the front lines are many of our Evangelical Christian, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish friends.  They've been asking where we are.  They're urging us to step forward with reinforcements, to carry our share of the spears. 

I'm concerned that good Latter-day Saints read what the mainstream media say about these valiant spear-carriers, branding them the "religious right" or "ultra-conservative."  It sometimes only takes one experience with the media to find out how quickly they will brand you among the religious right, even when you've never uttered a word about religion.  Did you know that if you believe in God and marriage between a man and a woman that you are now considered the far Right and part of a religious hate group? 

One pro-family organization did a non-religious test email to several thousand voters in Pennsylvania simply to introduce itself.  However, because it was a "pro-family" organization, vulgar hate mail came back accusing it of being some "religious right wing hate group" and worse.

Will Evil Prevail? 

"The tide of evil flows," said President Hinckley.  "Today it has become a veritable flood. Most of us, living somewhat sheltered lives, have little idea of the vast dimensions of it. Billions of dollars are involved for those who pour out pornography, for those who peddle lasciviousness, for those who deal in perversion, in sex and violence. God give us the strength, the wisdom, the faith, the courage as citizens to stand in opposition to these and to let our voices be heard in defense of those virtues which, when practiced in the past, made men and nations strong, and which, when neglected, brought them to decay."  (Ensign, First Presidency Message, Sep. 2004)

If we will anxiously engage as Latter-day Saints in this election and beyond, we could well be the deciding factor in defending the values on which our faith and our children's future depends.  The disgruntled who say, "I'm not voting" are not only wasting a freedom bought dearly with blood, but their absence is a double negative in the vote count. 

Brigham Young said, "No matter how good a government is, unless it is administered by righteous men, an evil government will be made of it.' (Journal of Discourses, 10:177.)  Will we elect the righteous or let evil prevail by one vote?  Every Latter-day Saint in the United States has a sacred duty to make a difference between now and November 2nd.  Perhaps you'll be that one vote in your precinct that will elect the next president or governor.  It's called the Power of One

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