Jeffrey Archer - Sons of Fortune

The hall had been built to house just under a thousand people, as the population of Madison didn’t venture out much at night. But on this occasion, even before the mayor, his executives, Fletcher, Nat and their two respective parties had entered the room, it looked more like a Japanese railway station in the rush hour than a town hall in a sleepy coastal Connecticut resort. Nat only hoped that the senior fire officer was not present, as there couldn’t have been a safety regulation that they weren’t breaking.

‘I shall begin proceedings by letting everyone know how I intend to conduct the count,’ said the mayor, before heading off in the direction of the stage, leaving the two candidates wondering if he would ever make it. Eventually the diminutive, grey-haired figure emerged up on to the platform and took his place in front of a lowered microphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘My name is Paul Holbourn, and only strangers will be unaware that I am the mayor of Madison.’ Fletcher suspected that most people in that room were making their first and last visit to the historic town hall. ‘But today,’ he continued, ‘I stand before you in my capacity as elections officer for the district of Madison. I have already explained to both candidates the procedure I intend to adopt, which I will now go over again...’

Fletcher began looking around the room and quickly became aware that few people were listening to the mayor as they were busy jostling to secure a place as near to the cordoned-off area as possible where the vote would be taking place.

When the mayor had finished his homily, he made a gallant effort to return to the centre of the room, but would never have completed the course if it hadn’t been for the fact that proceedings could not commence without his imprimatur.

When he eventually reached the starting gate, the chief clerk handed the mayor a pair of scissors. He proceeded to cut the seals on the twenty-two boxes as if he were performing an opening ceremony. This task completed, the officials emptied the boxes and began to tip the ballots out on to the elongated centre table. The mayor then checked carefully inside every box — first turning them upside down, and then shaking them, like a conjuror who wishes to prove there’s no longer anything inside. Both candidates were invited to double check.

Tom and Jimmy kept their eyes on the centre table as the officials began to distribute the voting slips among the counters, much as a croupier might stack chips at a roulette table. They began by gathering the ballots in tens, and then placing an elastic band around every hundred. This simple exercise took nearly an hour to complete, by which time the mayor had run out of things to say about Madison to anyone who was still willing to listen. The piles were then counted by the chief clerk, who confirmed that there were fifty-nine, with one left over containing fewer than a hundred ballots.

In the past at this point, the mayor had always made his way back up on to the stage, but his chief clerk thought it might be easier if the microphone was brought to him. Paul Holbourn agreed to this innovation and it would have been a shrewd decision had the lead been long enough to reach the cordoned-off area, but at least the mayor now had a considerably shorter journey to complete before having to deliver his ultimatum. He blew into the microphone, producing a sound like a train entering a tunnel, which he hoped would bring some semblance of order to the proceedings.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, checking the piece of paper the chief clerk had placed in his hand, ‘5,934 good citizens of Madison have taken part in this election, which I am informed is fifty-four per cent of the electorate, being one per cent above the average for the state.’

‘That extra percentage point might well turn out to our advantage,’ Tom whispered in Nat’s ear.

‘Extra points usually favour the Democrats,’ Nat reminded him.

‘Not when the electorate has an average age of sixty-three,’ rebutted Tom.

‘Our next task,’ continued the mayor, ‘is to separate the votes of both parties before we can begin the count.’ No one was surprised that this exercise took even longer, as the mayor and his officials were regularly called on to setde disputes. Once this task had been completed the counting of the votes began in earnest. Piles of tens in time multiplied into hundreds before being placed in neat little lines like soldiers on a parade ground.

Nat would have liked to circle the room and follow the entire process, but the hall had become so crowded that he had to satisfy himself with the regular reports relayed back to him by his lieutenants in the field. Tom did decide to fight his way round and came to the conclusion that although Nat looked as if he was in the lead, he couldn’t be sure if it was sufficient to make up the 118 vote advantage that Fletcher currently enjoyed following the recount of the overnight ballots.

It was another hour before the counting had been completed, and the two piles of slips were lined up facing each other. The mayor then invited both candidates to join him in the cordoned-off area in the centre of the room. He there explained that sixteen ballots had been rejected by his officials, and he therefore wished to consult them before deciding if any should be considered valid.

No one could accuse the mayor of not believing in open government, because all sixteen ballots had been laid out on the centre of the table for everyone to see. Eight appeared to have no mark on them at all, and both candidates agreed that they could be rejected. ‘Cartwright should have been sent to the electric chair’, and ‘no lawyer is fit to hold public office’, were also dismissed just as quickly. Of the remaining six, all had marks other than crosses against one of the names, but as they were equally divided, the mayor suggested that they should all be validated. Both Jimmy and Tom checked the six votes and could find no fault with the mayor’s logic.

As this little detour had yielded no advantage to either candidate, the mayor gave the green light for the full count to begin. Stacks of hundreds were once again lined up in front of the counters, and Nat and Fletcher tried from a distance to gauge if they had won or lost enough to change the wording on their letterhead for the next four years.

When the counting finally stopped, the chief clerk passed a piece of paper to the mayor with two figures printed on it. He didn’t need to call for silence, because everyone wanted to hear the result. The mayor, having abandoned any thought of returning to the stage, simply announced that the Republicans had won by a margin of 3,019 to 2,905. He then shook hands with both candidates, obviously feeling that his task had been completed, while everyone else tried to work out the significance of the figures.

Within moments, several of Fletcher’s supporters were leaping up and down once they realized that, although they had lost Madison by 114, they had won the state by four votes. The mayor was already on his way back to his office, looking forward to a well earned lunch, by the time Tom had caught up with him. He explained the real significance of the local result, and added that on behalf of his candidate, he would be requesting a recount. The mayor made his way slowly back into the hall to be greeted with chants of recount, recount, recount, and, without consulting his officials announced that was what he had always intended to do.

Several of the counters who had also begun to pack up and leave, quickly sidled back to their places. Fletcher listened carefully as Jimmy whispered in his ear. He considered the suggestion for a few moments, but replied firmly, ‘No.’

Jimmy had pointed out to his candidate that the mayor had no authority to order a recount, as it was Fletcher who had lost the vote in Madison, and only a losing candidate could call for a recount. The Washington Post wrote in a leader the following morning that the mayor had also exceeded his authority on another front, namely that Nat had beaten his rival by over one per cent, also rendering a recount unnecessary. However, the columnist did concede that rejecting such a request might well have ended in a riot, not to mention interminable legal wrangles, which would not have been in keeping with the way both candidates had conducted their campaigns.