Voters mark their ballots on Nov. 5, 2024 in Tryon, North Carolina. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
Does one vote really make a difference in an election?
With mail-in voting starting this month for North Carolina’s 2026 Primary, a new report answers that question with a decisive “yes.”
Research from Common Cause North Carolina reveals how one person’s vote — or decision not to vote — made the difference in who won or lost in three dozen North Carolina elections last year. Seven contests for mayor or town council ended in a tie. In another 15 elections, the winner prevailed by just one vote. And in 14 other cases, a two-vote margin of victory would have vanished if one of the winner’s voters had chosen the losing candidate.
That’s 36 North Carolina contests with outcomes determined by one voter.
For example, out west, with the flip of a coin, John Shepherd won his 2025 race for a seat on the Jefferson Town Council. In the eastern North Carolina town of Whitakers, John Ford emerged the winner of a tie vote for a seat on the town board when his name was pulled from a cardboard box. In 2019, Ford lost a tied contest when his opponent’s name was drawn from a box.
It was the same story 10 years ago in the Sandhills town of Garland, when a tied race was also resolved “by lot” or chance, as required by state law. In that case, candidates put colored pens in a box, and the elections board chair picked the winner’s purple pen. In that same year, 69 North Carolina mayors or town council members won their election by five or fewer votes.
These types of results over the past decade aren’t a fluke. In a similar analysis of 2019’s local elections, in 39 cities, the decision of one voter could have turned a loser into a winner.
The winners of these local elections have a direct impact on our lives. They make decisions affecting community projects, public health and safety, taxes, and more. Local electeds can also use these positions as a steppingstone to gain even more power. In 2003, Thom Tillis tied for a seat on the Cornelius town council and went on to become a state legislator, then N.C. House Speaker, and now a U.S. Senator.
But local elections aren’t the only ones where a single voter makes a difference.
In 2020, incumbent N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley lost her statewide race to opponent Paul Newby by 401 votes out of over 5.5 million votes cast. That means less than one vote in each of North Carolina’s 550 incorporated municipalities could have determined who would run our state’s highest court.
Similar to the stakes in 2026, the result of that single Beasley-Newby race would ultimately shift the trajectory of our judiciary. In the years since, the Newby Court has been responsible for reversing key decisions that protected voters from rampant gerrymandering, opened the door for more delays in long overdue education funding in the Leandro case, and driven “changes that have reverberated well beyond the borders of his state.”
As we look ahead to this year’s elections, it’s also worth mentioning that in the last midterm, only about half (51.14%) of the state’s registered voters (3,790,202 out of 7,412,050) cast a ballot. Those who chose not to vote had as much impact as those who did — determining everything from the balance of power of the U.S. Senate to how powerful county sheriffs enforce laws around everything from health access to immigration.
Just as your vote can be pivotal in any North Carolina election, sharing the power of that vote with others can help jumpstart a movement that could drive the millions who stayed home in 2022 to make a different choice this year.
Mail-in voting for the 2026 Primary begins on January 12. Early voting begins a month later on February 12. Get ready now by visiting ncvoterguide.org.
Sailor Jones is State Director for Common Cause North Carolina.Hence then, the article about as 2026 elections begin a single vote could make the difference was published today ( ) and is available on NC news line ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( As 2026 Elections Begin, A Single Vote Could Make the Difference )
Also on site :