Unrequested Ballots Quotes

Peace will come soon to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure their cases and pay the costs. ~ Abraham Lincoln

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

In the view of everyone, I am a viable candidate and I should be on the ballot. ~ John McCain

The ballot is the only safety. ~ Frederick Douglass

It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley. ~ Malcolm X

There are a number of Americans who shouldn't vote. The number is 57 percent, to judge by the combined total of Clinton and Perot ballots in the 1996 presidential election. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Power. It is what we of the working class preach. We know, and well we know by bitter experience, that no appeal for the right, for justice, for humanity, can ever touch you. Your hearts are hard as your heels with which you tread upon the faces of the poor. So we have preached power. By the power of our ballots on election day will we take your government away from you - " "What ~ Jack London

Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. ~ Malcolm X

Hitler scheduled joint plebiscites in Austria and Germany for April 10, 1938. Both populations voted on whether to incorporate the two countries into a single state. The people of Austria cast 99.73 percent of their ballots in favor of Anschluss with Germany. The Germans voted 99.08 percent for unification.
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On March 18. 1938, the German government notified the League of Nations that Austria had cancelled its affiliation. This international body, which had never manifest concern for the plight of the distressed little nation, now debated whether Germany was responsible for paying Austria's delinquent membership dues of 50,000 Swiss francs from January 1 to March 13. This ended the chain of circumstances leading to the unification of Hitler's homeland with the German Reich, an event known to history as "the rape of Austria. ~ Richard Tedor

The work of making Nigeria great is not yet done, because I still believe that change is possible, this time through the ballot, and most importantly, because I still have the capacity and the passion to dream and work for a Nigeria that will be respected again in the comity of nations and that all Nigerians will be proud of. ~ Muhammadu Buhari

Elections officials here in California are concerned that having 247 candidates would require a ballot so long it would be difficult to count. Today in Florida they said, 'What? You count the ballots?' ~ Jay Leno

With a century and change between the 1880 convention and now, I'll admit I rolled my eyes at the ideological hairsplitting, wondering how a group of people who more or less agreed with one another about most issues could summon forth such stark animosity. Thankfully, we Americans have evolved, our hearts made larger, our minds more open, welcoming the negligible differences among our fellows with compassion and respect. As a Democrat who voted for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, an election suspiciously tipped to tragic Republican victory because of a handful of contested ballots in the state of Florida, I, for one, would never dream of complaining about the votes siphoned in that state by my fellow liberal Ralph Nader, who convinced citizens whose hopes for the country differ little from my own to vote for him, even though had those votes gone to Gore, perhaps those citizens might have spent their free time in the years to come more pleasurably pursuing leisure activities, such as researching the sacrifice of Family Garfield, instead of attending rallies and protests against wars they find objectionable, not to mention the money saved on aspirin alone considering they'll have to pop a couple every time they read the newspaper, wondering if the tap water with which they wash down the pills is safe enough to drink considering the corporate polluter lobbyists now employed at the EPA. ~ Sarah Vowell

I have an idea about voting, how about on every ballot we include "None of the above". People may laugh at that, but what that is, it is a vote of no confidence in your government and I'm willing to bet that in some elections, 'None of the Above' would win. Imagine if you won the election but lost to 'None of the Above'. Wouldn't that make you re-think your positions? ~ Jesse Ventura

Being on the ballot is a lot different than getting in. ~ Orel Hershiser

The expression 'three is a crowd' holds true for both romance and politics. A three-way race is a disaster, because it splits the ballots, making it almost impossible to gain a majority of the votes. It usually results in a runoff. ~ Evette Davis

The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers. ~ Lysander Spooner

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

I give nightly praise to my Maker that I never cast a ballot to bring that lazy, disreputable, ill-tempered beast into what was once my home. I'm glad that I had the courage to go on record as opposing that illegitimate, shameless flea-bag that now shares my bed and board. You abstainer, you! ~ Frank B. Gilbreth Jr.

I don't doubt a number of those ballots, of those votes that were cast for me, probably were intended for Vice President Gore. ~ Pat Buchanan

We are wide open and vulnerable and in all likelihood an activist judge will strike down our Defense of Marriage Act, our state law against gay marriage, this year. And in all likelihood, we will have gay marriage in 2004 in Minnesota , if we don't get this amendment on the ballot for November. ~ Michele Bachmann

I'm not rewarding unrequested, lazy singers with their aggressive pudding demands. ~ Jenny Lawson

But did you know that during the past quarter century, no presidential election has been won by more than ten million ballots cast? Yet every federal election during the same time period had at least one hundred million people of voting age who did not bother to vote! ~ Andy Andrews

They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their own voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves and I'd help them. I laughed. Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men ... For all they were concerned, we were so many names scribbled on fake ballots, to be used at their convenience and when not needed to be filed away. It was a joke, an absurd joke. ~ Ralph Ellison

There's a direct relationship between how difficult it is to send a message and how strongly it is received. ~ Howard Rheingold

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

Printing ballots in multiple languages costs millions of dollars every year. It also discourages immigrants from integrating into American society and gaining the benefits that come from speaking English. ~ Ernest Istook

[L]et us imagine a mirror image of what is happening today. What if millions of white Americans were pouring across the border into Mexico, taking over parts of cities, speaking English rather than Spanish, celebrating the Fourth of July rather than Cinco de Mayo, sleeping 20 to a house, demanding bilingual instruction and welfare for immigrants, opposing border control, and demanding ballots in English? What if, besides this, they had high rates of crime, poverty, and illegitimacy? Can we imagine the Mexicans rejoicing in their newfound diversity?
And yet, that is what Americans are asked to do. For whites to celebrate diversity is to celebrate their own declining numbers and influence, and the transformation of their society. For every other group, to celebrate diversity is to celebrate increasing numbers and influence. Which is a real celebration and which is self-deception?
Whites - but only whites - must never take pride in their own people. Only whites must pretend they do not prefer to associate with people like themselves. Only whites must pretend to be happy to give up their neighborhoods, their institutions, and their country to people unlike themselves. Only whites must always act as individuals and never as members of a group that promotes shared interests.
Racial identity comes naturally to all non-white groups. It comes naturally because it is good, normal, and healthy to feel kinship for people like oneself. Despite the fashionable view that race ~ Jared Taylor

Any time you have loose ballots, you have to worry about shenanigans. It's a shame such a hard-fought election has to come down to something like this. ~ David Axelrod

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

Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets, because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots and announce - yes, announce - that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by ... liberals. ~ George F. Will

Putting measures like gay marriage on ballots for elections only hurts the gay rights cause and elects more conservative politicians. ~ Roseanne Barr

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

Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me, but that's not on the ballot. ~ Russell Brand

If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it'd be a travesty. ~ Al Franken

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

If the ballot doesn't work, we'll try something else. But let us try the ballot. ~ Malcolm X

Politics has become a blood sport that goes beyond just the person whose name is on the ballot. ~ Paul Ryan

I don't know what is stronger or what is weaker.The whole language of strength and weaknesses is irrelevant,because when you use arms you do not use ballots, and public opinion is unimportant, and they shoot at their opponents. ~ Shimon Peres

We've got ballots flying around, being counted by hand, arriving by truck and in God knows whose custody. ~ David Axelrod

Playing behind a first-ballot Hall of Famer, who also is the all-time record holder for consecutive starts by a quarterback, it's a different mind-set. You just have to challenge yourself in ways that you never challenged yourself before. ~ Aaron Rodgers

There is a greater strength than wealth, and it is greater because it cannot be taken away. Our strength, the strength of the proletariat, is in our muscles, in our hands to cast ballots, in our fingers to pull triggers. This strength we cannot be stripped of. It is the primitive strength, it is the strength that is to life germane, it is the strength that is stronger than wealth, and that wealth cannot take away. "But your strength is detachable. It can be taken away from you. Even now the Plutocracy is taking it away from you. In the end it will take it all away from you. And then you will cease to be the middle class. You will descend to us. You will become proletarians. And the beauty of it is that you will then add to our strength. We will hail you brothers, and we will fight shoulder to shoulder in the cause of humanity. "You ~ Jack London

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

Vote counting and ballot collecting does not occur in the light of day. There are too many occasions when observers and opposing parties lose contact with the ballots. ~ Bob Schaffer

To change the world by bullets or ballots was a useless procedure. If the workers ever did get a majority of either, they would have the envy and greed in their hearts and would be chained by these as much as by the chains of the master class. And the State which they would like to call a Cooperative Commonwealth would be based on power; the state would not wither away but would grow. Therefore the only revolution worthwhile was the one-man revolution within the heart. Each one could make this by himself and not need to wait on a majority. ~ Ammon Hennacy

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