THE MAN WHO STOLE YOUR VOTE (NATIONAL RESEARCH BUREAU - UNDATED)

No.  The Man Who Stole Your Vote is not Donald Trump.  Not yet, anyway.

This is a  sixteen-page comic booklet explaining the importance of voting...and the perils of not voting.  The basic facts are true, although some of the underlying conclusions are shaky.

Fred All-American is napping in his easy chair when a masked man comes in and orders him out of his home.  Fred All-American tries to call the police, but the police are with the masked man -- as are the governor and the senator.  All of them owe their jobs to the masked man.

How did Fred All-American get into this mess?  Simple.  He and his wife did not vote that day because the weather was bad.  And the masked man stole his vote, and that of his wife.  By not voting he essentially gave their votes to the masked man; the masked man's vote was then worth three votes -- his, Fred All-American's and Mrs. All-American's.  in fact, only 13 people out of a hundred had come out to vote, which meant that the masked man and 12 others decided for 100 people who would be governor, who would be senator, and who would run for president.  "While all you stay-at-homes sat comfortably your future was decided by a handful of people who went to the polls.!"  And that handful could be a jerk, or a politician (honest or otherwise), or an actual nice guy, or "the dumb blonde in the office" (yeah, the pamphlet went there!).  The fact is that they -- the few that voted -- are now Joe All-American's bosses!  And low voter turnout opens the strong possibility of graft!

And in this case:  "Well, the machine has won again in our town.  Of 100,000people who could have voted in this election, only 13,000 went out to vote!  the candidates [sci] majority was won by a small majority of 3,000 votes.  If just 3,000 and 1 more people had gone to the polls and voted for the opposition, the political story in this state would have been quite different."

So there's a bit to unpack here.  A majority of 3,000 in a field of 13,000 is not a "small" majority -- it means that nearly two-thirds of the voters voted for the "machine."  And when did an extra 3,001 votes ever supported a single candidate or platform?  I gt the point they are trying to make here, but Geez Louise.

The actual point -- a valid one -- is that 87-000 voters gave up their right to choose their government for the next few years.  The people who do vote, right or wrong, are the people who decide.

The booklet then goes on to play fast and loose with numbers to make their point.  In this comic book world, "1 person in 13 voted in primaries, where candidates are selected; 1 person in 8 voted for senator, representative, mayor or governor; less than 1/2 of the registered votes helped to choose their president."  Pay no attention to the numbers they present here, folks; pay attention to the oiint they are trying to make.

YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT.

The Fred All-American wakes up and is determined from now on to vote!

Following the comic book portion of the pamphlet, we get the Eight Commandments for Voters:  Keep Informed, Study the Candidates, Participate, Offer Your Services, Encourage Those with Character, Always Express Your Preference, Stimulate Others to Vote, and Consider It Your Moral Obligation= to Vote.  Can't argue with any of these.

This was one of four pamphlets in the Good Government series published by the National Research Bureau, a non-partisan group.  The other three were The Price You Pay for Graft, If Your Kids Could Vote, and The Next Four Years, each available for purchase for five dollars per fifty copies; for a slight extra fee you could get your name and address imprinted on the back cover of each booklet.

The booklet leaves with this little quote, citing John Nuveen ("investment banker and former WTB* and ECA* official):  "...that 90 percent of Americans are politically illiterate.  And he warns the political illiteracy of America is a greater menace to the world than the ordinary illiteracy of the masses in the path of the communism overseas."

Bottomnline:  your informed vote is important.  Don't throw it away!

*Nowadays, WTB and ECA could mean just about anything.  I imagine in the 50s and 60s (when this booklet was most likely published), they meant something important.