I am India's most faithful voter, and I still have not seen the inside of a polling booth. ibid. p102
Elections have been described as bribing the voters with their own money. Norman Lamont, former chancellor
That power is most vulnerable but most critical at the time of a general election. In the last two elections outgoing governments used such committees for unusual tactics, which like details of the committees themselves, have no place in the textbooks that are supposed to teach us about the British constitution. Duncan Campbell, Secret Society: The Secret Constitution, Secret Government Committees, BBC 1987
With the election imminent the prime minister [Mrs Thatcher] set up a series of Conservative Party liaison committees to plan the Party’s election stand on critical issues. The meetings took place in the Cabinet Room of No 10. But these were party political committees. ibid.
Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. Abraham Lincoln, cited Francis Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln
The ballot is stronger than the bullet. Abraham Lincoln
The only people truly bound by campaign promises are the voters who believe them. Christopher Hitchens
Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates. Gore Vidal
If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers. Nelson Mandela
Somehow politicians have become convinced that negative campaigning pays off in elections. George McGovern
Democratic elections alone do not remedy the crisis of confidence in government. Moreover, there is no viable justification for a democratic system in which public participation is limited to voting. Beth Simone Noveck
The ‘democracy gap’ in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the ‘least worst’ every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the ‘least worst’ gets worse. Ralph Nader
I’m tired now of the elections. Barbara Bush
In elections in Iceland I have always been an abstainer. It seems like politics is such a small bundle of self-important people, who don’t have much to do with things I’m interested in. Bjork
How shall we avert the dire calamities with which we are threatened? The answer comes from the graves of our fathers: By the frequent election of new men. Other help or hope for the salvation of free government there is none under heaven. If history does not teach this, we have read it all wrong. Jeremiah S Black, The Third Term: Reasons Against It
What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the means of knowing the fitness of your man; and then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or dependence. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
I have serious doubts about the value of debates in a presidential election. They tend to be a test of reaction time rather than a genuine exposition of the participants’ philosophies and programs. Further, in debate, candidates tend to overstate their views. In the 1960 situation I had a very practical objection: Nixon was widely known; Kennedy was not; dramatic debates would therefore help Kennedy. Dwight D Eisenhower, The White House Years 1965 vol 2 p599 footnote
An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it. George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah
Each candidate behaved well in the hope of being judged worthy of election. However, this system was disastrous when the city had become corrupt. For then it was not the most virtuous but the most powerful who stood for election, and the weak, even if virtuous, were too frightened to run for office. Niccolo Machiavelli
War has rules, mud wrestling has rules ... Politics has no rules. The Campaign 2012 starring Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis & Jason Sudeikis & Katherine LaNasa & Dylan McDermott & John Lithgow & Dan Aykroyd & Brian Cox & Sarah Baker & Grant Goodman & Kya Haywood et al, director Jay Roach, Ross Perot opening caption
I want to be second lady. ibid. her to him
Right now your likeability is at 26%. The focus group words that come up about you are Odd, Clammy, probably Serbian. ibid. campaign manager
Do you know what the difference between your mamma and a washing machine is? When I dump a load in the machine, the machine doesn’t follow me around for three weeks. ibid. Brady
Anybody that writes about the redistribution of wealth sounds like a communist to me. ibid. Brady
I will do anything it takes to win. Even if it means lying. Or physically hurting someone. ibid. Brady
Let’s win this state for America. ibid. Brady
Marty Huggins shot his opponent Congressman Brady in a hunting accident and went up in the polls. ibid. television news
The truth is, big money is running politics in America. ibid. Huggins
One minute you’ve got your pants down. And in the next minute you’re a US Congressman. ibid.
Congressman Scott Tally will tender his resignation over allegation of using federal funds to purchase his mistress’s fake breasts. ibid.
The results of the council elections in 1986 terrified the Tories. Labour came within a few votes of taking control of Westminster. At once Porter and her henchmen, who included the current Tory MP for Milton Keynes, Barry Legg, called a series of secret meetings to hatch a plot which would ensure that Labour would never get so close again. The plan was simple: to use the powers of the council in planning, housing and even in street amenities, to move Labour voters out of marginal wards and Tory ones in. Paul Foot, Waste Disposal
I’ve now been in fifty-seven states: I think one left to go. Barack Obama
For over a decade Vladimir Putin has been the undisputed master of Russia. But after claims he fixed parliamentary elections tens of thousands of middle class Russians took to the streets demanding his resignation. Putin, Russia and the West I: Taking Control, BBC 2012
The more Washington supported democracy on Russia’s borders the more dictatorial Putin became. He changed the election rules. Putin, Russia and the West II: Democracy Threatens
The protests moved to the streets. The ruling party had been declared winners in parliamentary elections. Well documented accusations of fraud were brushed aside. Putin, Russia & the West IV: New Start
These brigands did just as they pleased. No-one ever interfered with them. They never consulted the ratepayers in any way. Even at election times they did not trouble to hold meetings: each one of them just issued a kind of manifesto setting forth his many noble qualities and calling upon the people for their votes: and the latter never failed to respond. They elected the same old crew time after time. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
The walls were covered with huge Liberal and Tory posters, which showed in every line the contempt of those who published them for the intelligence of the working men to whom they were addressed. There was one Tory poster that represented the interior of a public house; in front of the bar, with a quart pot in his hand, a clay pipe in his mouth, and a load of tools on his back, stood a degraded-looking brute who represented the Tory ideal of what an Englishman should be … The Liberal posters were not quite so offensive. They were more cunning, more specious, more hypocritical and consequently more calculated to mislead and deceive the more intelligent of the voters. ibid.
Voter appeal, after all, is hard to quantify. How can it be measured?
It can’t really – except in one case. The key is to measure a candidate against … himself. That is, Candidate A today is likely to be similar to Candidate A two or four years hence. Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics introduction
The amount of money spent by the candidates hardly matters at all. ibid.