Fifty-one votes. That’s all. Just 51 votes out of nearly 2 million ballots.
That’s a razor-thin margin between victory and defeat, and a reminder that our votes matter: Every. Single. Vote. Matters. And voting matters because public policies impact how we live and think. Policies profoundly alter the story of our beloved Evergreen State.
In fact, that one race from the recent Primary Election has been designated as the tightest primary vote in state history, according to the Washington Secretary of State. Only 51 votes divided the race for the Commissioner of Public Lands, where Democrat Dave Upthegrove beat out GOP-endorsed Sue Kuehl Pederson by a thousandth of a percentage point to make it to the General Election. Election officials in 39 counties are in the process of hand recounting nearly one-third of the state’s 1.9 million ballots.
Results are expected within the week. So far, only three variances from the original count have been noted. The victor of the recount will go up against former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the General Election, who garnered a front-running 22% of the vote in the race.
Historically, this isn’t the only election that has been decided by just a handful of votes. In 2002, a single vote out of more than 11,000 decided a GOP state House primary election in Washington. Later, the candidate who lost found out a friend forgot to mail in his ballot. That one vote could have completely altered the election results. Multiple elections in Vermont, Wyoming, Virginia, and South Dakota also have been decided by a single vote, with even more decided by under 50 votes.
Washington’s latest close election comes amid a recent report that found approximately 25 million Christians in America do not vote consistently. “If self-professed followers of Christ voted, they would have the power to single-handedly change the course of our nation,” Daily Citizen reported. That’s the good and hopeful news! Christians not only have a patriotic duty to participate in elections but a biblical responsibility to do so as well. Read more about this topic in our informational booklets that discuss these topics in depth: Why Vote?, Vote the Bible, and Just Preach the Gospel?
We cannot overemphasize the importance of every single conservative Christian voting on November 5th. Our state is not a lost cause – your vote matters. There are over 1.7 million conservatives in Washington. If we can mobilize those voters, we have the power to change the landscape of our state’s political climate, and we even have the power to turn the tide of the presidential election. Will you join us in energizing fellow believers to engage in the political process on November 5th by exercising our constitutional right to vote?
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