I use the words of Ashish Ram’s po­em “The pow­er of One” to mo­ti­vate pa­tients. His words “One vote can change a na­tion”, now oc­cu­pies our lo­cal pol­i­tics.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment had an­tic­i­pat­ed cel­e­brat­ing the win­ning of the dis­trict of Lengua/In­di­an Walk from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ heart­land.

Ini­tial­ly, the votes showed that the PNM’s can­di­date, Pas­tor Aut­ly Granthume, had a lead of five bal­lots over the UNC’s Nicole Gopaul.

The first re­count dis­cov­ered two bal­lots er­ro­neous­ly tal­lied in favour of Granthume. In this ini­tial re­count, the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer al­so deemed that a pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed vote was cast in favour of the UNC.

This first re­count re­sult­ed in a tie. A sub­se­quent re­count con­firmed this re­sult.

The UNC po­si­tion is there is a re­ject­ed bal­lot with a vote cast in favour of their can­di­date. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this bal­lot was not ini­tialled by the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.

The pow­er of one, the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer in this in­stance, can al­so change the face of this elec­tion. This omis­sion on the part of an EBC staff re­sult­ed in the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of a legal­ly cast bal­lot.

Pas­tor Granthume would al­so know about the pow­er of one. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,000 years ago, one man called Je­sus changed the face of re­li­gion and the world.

In 1962, Dr Er­ic Williams knew about the pow­er of one when he pulled out of the Fed­er­a­tion and ut­tered five words that still re­ver­ber­ate around the Caribbean – one from ten equals ze­ro.

The adage “every vote counts” takes on a pro­found sig­nif­i­cance when we ex­am­ine his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary in­stances where the fate of na­tions, poli­cies, and even in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions was in­flu­enced by the pow­er of a sin­gle vote.

In 1831, the state of New York held an elec­tion for its US Sen­ate seat. Mar­tin Van Bu­ren, who lat­er be­came pres­i­dent, tied with Solomon South­wick. The state’s leg­is­la­ture had to de­cide the win­ner. The de­cid­ing vote was cast by a lone De­mo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tor, giv­ing Van Bu­ren the win and im­pact­ing the course of US his­to­ry.

In the Unit­ed King­dom Gen­er­al Elec­tion of 1997, in the con­stituen­cy of Win­ches­ter, the Lib­er­al De­mo­c­rat can­di­date Mark Oat­en won by one vote.

In the Aus­tralian Elec­tion of 2016, the seat of Her­bert was won by a sin­gle vote, ul­ti­mate­ly shap­ing the com­po­si­tion of the Aus­tralian Par­lia­ment.

In 2019, when the Brex­it leg­is­la­tion was de­bat­ed in the UK Par­lia­ment, there was a 308-308 tie. It was the Speak­er of the House of Com­mons who cast the de­cid­ing vote in favour of the gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al. This de­ci­sion has had far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for the UK’s re­la­tion­ship with the EU and its place on the glob­al stage.

In the In­di­an gen­er­al elec­tion of 2009, the fi­nal count in the Nel­lithope con­stituen­cy in Puducher­ry was 33,146 votes for the win­ning can­di­date and 33,145 votes for the run­ner-up.

The Cana­di­an fed­er­al elec­tion of 1940 re­sult­ed in a one-vote vic­to­ry for can­di­date Agnes MacPhail.

In Japan, the 2013 gen­er­al elec­tion led to a one-vote vic­to­ry for Lib­er­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty can­di­date Masahisa Sato.

In New Zealand, the 1993 gen­er­al elec­tion pro­duced a one-vote vic­to­ry for Na­tion­al Par­ty can­di­date Richard Worth in the Auck­land Cen­tral con­stituen­cy.

The US House elec­tion of 2008 saw a one-vote vic­to­ry for the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Chris­tine Jen­nings in Flori­da’s 13th con­gres­sion­al dis­trict.

The mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in the Guyanese gov­ern­ment on De­cem­ber 21, 2018, wit­nessed Mr Cha­ran­das Per­saud, a mem­ber of the gov­ern­ment, join­ing the 32 op­po­si­tion mem­bers in vot­ing for the mo­tion. This re­sult­ed in 33 mem­bers who vot­ed in favour of the mo­tion and 32 who vot­ed against. This saw the col­lapse of the Granger gov­ern­ment, which tried to hold on to pow­er de­spite the Speak­er of the As­sem­bly de­clar­ing that the mo­tion had been valid­ly passed, the Gov­ern­ment nei­ther re­sign­ing nor an­nounc­ing im­pend­ing elec­tions. This trig­gered sev­er­al le­gal chal­lenges which were set­tled by the CCJ.

These ex­am­ples span con­ti­nents, time pe­ri­ods, and types of elec­tions, un­der­scor­ing the uni­ver­sal truth that the pow­er of one vote knows no bound­aries. In an in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­con­nect­ed world, de­ci­sions made at the lo­cal, na­tion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els can re­ver­ber­ate glob­al­ly. The but­ter­fly ef­fect of a sin­gle vote can lead to new lead­ers, pol­i­cy di­rec­tions, and in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments that shape the course of his­to­ry.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, these in­stances serve as a re­minder that de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es hinge on the ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of cit­i­zens. Each vote is a vi­tal thread wo­ven in­to the fab­ric of rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­er­nance, il­lus­trat­ing that the col­lec­tive im­pact of cit­i­zen en­gage­ment can in­flu­ence not on­ly the tra­jec­to­ry of na­tions but al­so the broad­er ta­pes­try of glob­al af­fairs.

The ques­tion re­mains, though, do peo­ple recog­nise, be­lieve or even care about the pow­er of one?