ON THE SQUARE
60 Years of Memories of Butler
by James Ring
25 September 2020
Elections In Butler
The procedure of casting one’s vote in Butler and the surrounding precincts of Bates has changed considerably since I arrived on the Square in 1960. That year’s Presidential contest was the one between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. I was too young to vote, which required having attained the age of majority, a.k.a. 21 years. As a minor, I could work and pay taxes, but I couldn’t enter into a legal contract or vote.
Anyway, Kennedy won in the Electoral College without getting a majority of votes cast, with the aid of his influential father connections. Sadly, the youngest President was murdered on November 22, 1963, leaving Vice President Lydon Baynes Johnson to carry on after the end of Camlot, as the short Kennedy presidency was called.
By 1964, the turmoil of heavy politics was churning. Staunch conservative Barry Goldwater was going up against experienced campaigner LBJ, and the mud-slinging was hot and heavy. I was old enough to vote that year; I was also old enough to be drafted, so I was in the Army that year. There was talk of letting 18 year olds vote if they were in the service, since if they were old enough to die in Vietnam they ought to have a say in their future. Eventually, the overall voting age was lowered to 18, which probably wasn’t a wise move, given the lack of discipline and maturity of today’s kids.
I had worked the phones for the Goldwater candidacy and was at party headquarters on election night, running back and forth to the courthouse with Laurenda Sivils, Sheriff Clovis Sivils’ daughter, checking the latest tally numbers on the hand-written scoreboard in the Clerk’s office. Clovis campaigned every day, so his re-election was assured, but Barry Goldwater was buried by the relentless “wild cowboy” image painted by the Johnson crowd (remember the TV ad of the little girl playing in the flower garden, being blown up by a mushroom cloud?)
When Ronald Reagan tried for the nomination in 1976, Missouri went for him but the old-line party nationwide decided to stick with President Jerry Ford, even though he had never been elected for any office higher than Congress. With the stench of Watergate on him, Ford was tossed out in favor of well-meaning but inept Jimmy Carter. Reagan got his chance in 1980 and won handily. I put the hex on his opponent Fritz Mondale by clandestinely planting a “Reagan for President” lapel button in the woodwork above the county Mondale headquarters doorway. No one ever looked up and saw it in the weeks before the election, walking under it head-down.
No fancy voter registration cards or photo ID was needed to vote in those days. The party-furnished poll watchers knew who you were and the election official just checked your name off when you picked up a ballot. Thankfully, Bates County always used marked-up paper ballots that could be audited easily, even though the big cities had electric voting machines with handles that you twisted to vote. Contested outcomes were rare here, since the evidence was easy to verify.
