One vote can make a difference

If you think your one vote doesn’t matter… here is an example of a vote that happened in the Wyoming 2026 Legislative Session. HB0040 Suicide Prevention. The bill asked for school districts to provide suicide education to students. One of our Big Horn Basin Representatives helped sponsor the bill. The bill failed introduction by one vote. Ironically, the Representative who sponsored the bill voted against his own bill. His one vote for would have moved the bill forward. 

The older I get, the more these columns feature the word “remember.”  Bet you can relate. Today, I’m remembering back to 1976. The first presidential election I could vote. The choice was between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. It was also my first year of college. The weeks leading up to election day, we would lightly debate between classes on who to vote for.  We took voting very seriously. Perhaps it was because in high school we had a great government teacher, Mrs. Jeans. She drilled in us that we needed to vote. 

Maybe it was the field trips to the Capitol Building. We would sit about the House and the Senate watching them vote on various bills. Contributing to that experience was watching some bills pass with hardly any votes because so many congress members were not on the floor for the vote. It was a bit shocking, and we learned first-hand what “pork barrel” meant. (Pork barrel politics refers to the allocation of government funds for localized projects aimed at securing votes and boosting a politician’s re-election chances. These projects—often funded by taxpayer money—are included in legislation to benefit specific districts, rather than the general public.). 

If more congress members had been there to cast their vote, those bills could have gone the other way. Even if by just one vote.  Instead, we watched millions of dollars going to the bill sponsor’s home district to benefit the few. 

People often complain about towns, committees, boards, government, commissions, etc. As mentioned in last week’s column, many of the people that complain don’t come to the meetings to learn and to express their thoughts. 

You have to understand the process to be a part of the change. Case in point - a lot of people have expressed their concern about a Dollar General coming to Basin. Three great letters to the editor to express their point of view. Yet only one person thus far has come to a council meeting to express their thoughts. Some may say what is the point, the elected officials are going to do what they want. That may be true, but you are on the record on expressing your feelings to your elected officials. That is, if you voted. 

In 2024, 120,000 out of over 450,000 voting age Wyomingites voted in the primary. That means (if my math is correct) only around 25-26% of voters were responsible for those that were elected that year.  If you don’t vote, do you have the right to complain? 

For those curious… I voted for Ford.