How many votes need to change to change the outcomes of Presidential elections? Well, that's an interesting question to me and there has been a study done on just that very thing. You can view the full study here. The first 12 elections from 1789-1832 are not included due to the fact that electors were done differently before 1836. Since 1832, there have been 43 elections. The upcoming one will be the 44th since 1832 and the 56th overall. Just to show how important every vote is, there have been three elections decided by less than 1000 votes. Those are:
2000 - 269 votes
1876 - 445 votes
1884 - 575 votes
8 elections decided by less than 10000 votes:
1836 - 1288 votes
1916 - 1887 votes
1844 - 2554 votes
1848 - 3195 votes
1888 - 4801 votes
1840 - 8174 votes
1880 - 8418 votes
1976 - 9246 votes
5 elections decided by less than 30000 votes:
1960 - 11874 votes
1896 - 18602 votes
1892 - 24488 votes
1868 - 27122 votes
1948 - 29294 votes
8 more elections decided by less than 100000 votes:
1852 - 31739 votes
1864 - 32733 votes
1856 - 34363 votes
2004 - 57787 votes
1908 - 59955 votes
1872 - 67418 votes
1900 - 73232 votes
1860 - 73984 votes
That's 24 elections that could easily have gone the other way out of a total of 55 elections. I think that shows just how few votes can change the outcome of an election. So... everyone get out and vote. If you don't vote, then not only do you lose my respect, but your political opinions no longer matter to me either. The above clearly shows that every vote can make a huge difference.
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