Announcing the Winners Too Early, Iowa

My name is Ruth Bennett, and I was going to go vote for Ronald Reagan at Phillips Middle School at that time. It is now just an apartment building. They had a TV screen in the hallway and we were lined up for some time in a line down the hall trying to get up to vote, when all at once, they showed Reagan saying that he was glad he had won. I forget who he was running against, I'm sorry, at that time. The other guy was saying he had lost and here we're standing in line to vote and we haven't even voted yet. He's already won. Half of the crowd just walked away. Well, why should I vote then if he's already won? I thought it was a mistake for them to have a TV screen sitting there in the room when we were ready to vote, because this made it so not everybody voted that year. They just let what happened happen. That's my story.

Asset ID: 8496
Themes: Voices and Votes, participation, civic engagement, voting, elections, Ronald Reagan
Date recorded: Jan. 13, 2020, 5:48 p.m.
Length of recording: 83.29 s
Related traveling exhibition: Voices and Votes: Democracy in America
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Main Street Fort Dodge