Quotes & Sayings About The Ballot Box

I have long believed the city, the country, indeed the world at large to be run by precisely the wrong kind of people. From the government to the great financial institutions, the peerage to the police force, our lives are controlled without exception by the stupid and greedy, the venal, the rapacious and the undeservedly rich. How much more comfortable would it be if the rulers of the world were not the cognoscenti of the bank balance, the ballot box, the offshore account, but were drawn instead from the ranks of the everyday - honest, kind, stout-hearted, commonplace folk. — Jonathan Barnes

We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box. Spain has no foolish dreams. — Francisco Franco

The beauty of our democracy lies in the American value of equality: if you vote, you have a seat at the table. If you speak, you have a chance to persuade others. A billionaire and a minimum wage earner have the same power at the ballot box. — Christine Pelosi

Too many of us dissipate our energy by being 'for all good causes,' attending meetings and passing resolutions, organizing and presenting petitions - all this effort to change others, when if we really got down to it we could use this energy to change ourselves ... We become tired radicals because we use our weakest weapon: the ballot box, where we are always outnumbered, and refuse to use our strongest weapon: spiritual power. — Ammon Hennacy

I'm not going to reduce the choices of Canadians at the ballot box by backroom deals or secret arrangements. I think that's a cause for cynicism more than anything else. — Justin Trudeau

The Al Saud believe they have an asset more powerful than the ballot box: they have Allah. — Karen Elliott House

The fate of the country ... does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning. — Henry David Thoreau

Governments and citizens blend together only in the imaginations of political theorists. Government is, and always will be, an alien power over private citizens. There is no magic in a ballot box that makes government any less coercive. — James Bovard

Liberals attempt through judicial activism what they cannot win at the ballot box. — Rush Limbaugh

Woman stock is rising in the market. I shall not live to see women vote, but I'll come and rap on the ballot box. — Lydia M. Child

When you represent the state of Washington, we have a tradition of deciding social issues by vote. Washington State passed abortion rights before Roe v. Wade and affirmed it at the ballot box later. — Michael Baumgartner

Against the new leviathan, whether in the guise of universal suffrage, democracy, or of an equally fraudulent triumphant proletariat, he (Kierkegaard) pitted the individual human soul made in the image of a God who was concerned about the fate of every living creature. In contrast with the notion of salvation through power, he held out the hope of salvation through suffering. The Cross against the ballot box or clenched fist; the solitary pilgrim against the slogan-shouting mob; the crucified Christ against the demagogue-dictators promising a kingdom of heaven on earth, whether achieved through endlessly expanding wealth and material well-being, or through the ever greater concentration of power and its ever more ruthless exercise. — Malcolm Muggeridge

Our cause is a common one. It is war between poverty and wealth ... This moneyed power is fast eating up the substance of the people. We have made war upon it, and we mean to win it. If we can, we will win through the ballot box; if not, then we shall resort to sterner means. — William H. Sylvis

There are many hands touching ballots after a voter drops his ballot into the ballot box. There is no guarantee of ballot secrecy for anyone, which makes the whole system vulnerable to intimidation and bribery. — Bob Schaffer

Politicians know that if they fail to engage with the gay community, and fail to develop coherent positions on the issues that concern them, they risk punishment at the ballot box. If we can do that for science, we will have made an outstanding start. — Mark Henderson

So what were Europeans telling their leaders? The general message was perfectly summed up by the cartoonist Chappatte, who drew a group of protesters holding up a placard shouting "Unhappy"
and one of their number shouting through a megaphone into the ballot box. There are 28 member states and 28 varieties of Unhappy. — Timothy Garton Ash

I must sojourn once to the ballot-box before I die. I hear the ballot-box is a beautiful glass globe, so you can see all the votesas they go in. Now, the first time I vote I'll see if the woman's vote looks any different from the rest
if it makes any stir or commotion. If it don't inside, it need not outside. — Sojourner Truth

The most famous case was the so-called Bradley effect: in 1982, California voters told exit pollsters they had elected a black governor, Tom Bradley, by a significant margin, but in the privacy of the ballot box they had actually given his white opponent a narrow victory. — Anonymous

Socialism in America will come through the ballot box. — Gus Hall

Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns. — Walter Bagehot

In America, freedom and justice have always come from the ballot box, the jury box, and when that fails, the cartridge box. — Steve Symms

I'm afraid, is that there are a number of groups who really don't want a fair-minded judge who has an openness to both sides of the argument. Rather, they want judges who will impose their liberal agenda on the American people; views so liberal that they cannot prevail at the ballot box. — John Cornyn

We love the ability of the people to influence the actions of decision-makers, of lawmakers and presidents to be removed from or elevated to office by the will of voters, and of the community to connect amongst diverse populations through the ballot box. — Charles B. Rangel

Women would then need to resort to the ballot box to request that protection - assuming the majority sees fit to give them the right/privilege to vote. — Timothy Sandefur

The best hope for Australia is the ballot box and good education. — John Monash

Only about 10 percent of India's population uses the web, making it unlikely that Internet freedom will be a decisive ballot-box issue anytime soon. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The time has come for justice at the ballot box, and justice in the courts, and justice in the legislative halls, and justice in the governor's office. — John Jay Hooker

To this culture warrior, gay marriage is not a vital issue. I don't believe the republic will collapse if Larry marries Brendan. However, it is clear that most Americans want heterosexual marriage to maintain its special place in American society. And as long as gays are not penalized in the civil arena, I think the folks should make the call at the ballot box. Traditional marriage is widely seen as a social stabilizer, and I believe that is true. — Bill O'Reilly

I really don't sit here and dream what life in the White House will be like. I just can't go beyond the point when the people go to the ballot box with all that power. — Tipper Gore

But in this country we have one great privilege which they don't have in other countries. When a thing gets to be absolutely unbearable the people can rise up and throw it off. That's the finest asset we've got - the ballot box. — Mark Twain

Never forgive at the ballot box! — Wendell Phillips

Jefferson, though the secret vote was still unknown at the time had at least a foreboding of how dangerous it might be to allow the people to share a public power without providing them at the same time with more public space than the ballot box and with more opportunity to make their voices heard in public than on election day. What he perceived to be the mortal danger to the republic was that the Constitution had given all power to the citizens, without giving them the opportunity of being citizens and of acting as citizens. — Hannah Arendt

It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an instrument that will secure political solutions ... They can see that the parliamentary democracy we boast of is becoming a sham. — Tony Benn

Our 'pathway' is straight to the ballot box, with no variableness nor shadow of turning. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

In a democracy, supposedly we hold power by what we do at the ballot box, so therefore the more we know about political power the better our choices should be and the better, in theory, our democracy should be. — Robert Caro

My view is that discrimination against anyone at the ballot box is wrong and should have the full enforcement of the federal government. — Barack Obama

I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box. — Thomas Jefferson

If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work - because if they don't, they won't be around the next time the ballot box is open. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

Democrats believe they can win at the ballot box by obstructing, and they would rather win the next election than move America forward. — Virginia Foxx

But say some, would you expose woman to the contact of rough, rude, drinking, swearing, fighting men at the ballot box? What a humiliating confession lies in this plea for keeping woman in the background! — Ernestine Rose

The ballot box is a most inadequate mechanism of change. — Simone De Beauvoir

Our goal is to get sport hunting in the same category as **** fighting and dog fighting. We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States. — Wayne Pacelle

There are ways to pursue political change. In a democracy, it's through the ballot box. There are other ways, and many democracies have many different systems of democracy. — Richard Armitage

If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would. [ ... ] Only 7% of Americans are hunters. That means there are more of us than there are of them. It is simply a matter of democracy. The majority rules in a democracy. We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States ... We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California. Then we will take it state by state. — Wayne Pacelle

Surely these women won't lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread, let me tell you that. — Rose Schneiderman

A man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. — Frederick Douglass

Voters tell politicians what they want through the ballot box. Constantly second-guessing them by speculating whether the parties should gang up on each other misses the point. — Nick Clegg

The best way to marginalize the Muslim Brotherhood [in Egypt] is in the ballot box, not through arrests and killing people. — Kelly Ayotte

Those who have the immense dishonesty to fight with a ballot box in one hand and a rifle in the other have no place in democratic politics. — Neil Kinnock

Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box. — Frederick Douglass

Professor Mises has keenly pointed out the paradox of interventionists who insist that consumers are too ignorant or incompetent to buy products intelligently, while at the same time proclaiming the virtues of democracy, where the same people vote for or against politicians whom they do not know and on policies which they scarcely understand. To put it another way, the partisans of intervention assume that individuals are not competent to run their own affairs or to hire experts to advise them, but also assume that these same individuals are competent to vote for these experts at the ballot box. They are further assuming that the mass of supposedly incompetent consumers are competent to choose not only those who will rule over themselves, but also over the competent individuals in society. Yet such absurd and contradictory assumptions lie at the root of every program for "democratic" intervention in the affairs of the people.12 — Murray N. Rothbard

The American public should simply accept no distractions. In our democracy, it is our duty to hold our elected leaders accountable. We do it at the ballot box. — Wesley Clark

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men. — James Buchanan

The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law. — Ida B. Wells

Is not the very beginning of privilege, monopoly and industrial slavery this erecting of the ballot-box above the individual? — Benjamin Tucker

Among them was a middle-aged man supported by two broken sticks. His legs were bent permanently beneath him by accident or disease, and it took him five minutes to cross the room, collect his ballot and shuffle into the booth in front of me. It was painful to watch; as he edged forward I became aware that my heart was racing. Finally - finally - the referendum really was under way. What would happen next? Could Eurico and Basilio have more support than I had assumed? How could the violence of the last seven months fail to have an effect? I should have looked away, but I watched, and saw the man on sticks painstakingly mark his cross in the lower of the two boxes, the one rejecting continuing association with Indonesia. Then he folded the paper, turned his legs around, and began walking slowly towards the ballot box. — Richard Lloyd Parry

The closer a Negro got to the ballot box, the more he looked like a rapist. — E. Franklin Frazier

If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government ... The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure. — Calvin Coolidge

I am very worried about this concentration of power, and it's not only because of Erdogan. We have the ballot box, but we don't have the culture of democracy. The government says: You see, we have the majority, we're entitled to do anything we want. But that's not democracy, that's majoritarianism. — Elif Safak

Exxon, Coca-Cola, BHP Billiton and News Corporation have much more say in organising the global agenda than the planet's 5 billion mature-age voters without a ballot box. — Bob Brown

The United States inherited a seemingly inexhaustible fortune in natural resources, yet it has responded to its environment with a dismaying mixture of materialism and inertia. The nation was virtually founded upon a ubiquitous desire for access to land and its contents. Its amazing growth during the nineteenth century was based directly upon the exploitation - immediate, unplanned, full use of soils, minerals, forests, and rivers. Equitable access to these natural bounties rather than constitutional guarantees would be the practical basis for democracy. Subsequently, political institutions were shaped in such a way that they could facilitate the disposition of the public domain. But that expectation, as later generations ruefully observed, did not materialize. The combination of economics and government had instead produced a handful of owners and policy makers who were beyond the control of the ballot box. — Elmo Richardson

Maisie was next, and stepped up to vote. She wondered how many hands had trembled already today, holding their pencils over the ballots, with all the little boxes. Did most women take to their new, belated right with aplomb, or did they take their time, marveling over the beauty of it all, the silent speech that would be heard?
Or did they think, like she did, that there was a long queue behind her and she had to get to work.
She wrote a thick X, drew over it twice, and dropped the paper in the ballot box.
That's how you spell a shout. With an X. — Sarah Jane Stratford

If power lies more and more in the hands of corporations rather than governments, the most effective way to be political is not to cast one's vote at the ballot box, but to do so at the supermarket or at a shareholders' meeting. When provoked, corporations respond. — Noreena Hertz

Our children lost our direction because they have been compromised. They have found freedom at the ballot box, and then they have taken on plastic chains around their minds and souls and mortgage their future on credit cards. They have to learn better - they have to learn the value of ideas and health as opposed to wealth. — Andrew Young