The last event in an political campaign election is when they count the votes. Oddly enough, counting the votes is one of the first steps in your campaign. To win, you have to ask yourself: "How many votes do I need?" and, "Where will I get them?"

You have to begin by picking the number. You have to decide how many votes it will take, probably, to give you a victory in your campaign. That number is likely to be a lot smaller than you might think at first.

In analyzing election and campaign statistics there are two cardinal principals. One is that most Americans don't vote. The other is that you don't need all of the votes, or even most of the votes. You need only 50 percent of the votes, plus one. With these two principles in mind, you have to get the election results in your race for at least the last four elections, and decide how many votes it will take to win your election campaign.

Let's try and example. Let's say that a woman who has been a law clerk for a court wants to run for city law director in a small city where she lives. It has a population of about 35,000. Of that 35,000, only about 64 percent of the population is registered to vote, so there are only about 22,400 voters.

This is where the propensity of Americans to not vote comes in. Although there are more than 22,000 registered voters in the city, the municipal elections are likely held in off years, that is, years where there are no other major races.

When there is a big statewide race, like for governor or senator, there tends to be a big voter turnout. Some people vote only when there is a presidential race, so in those years there is a substantially larger number of people going to the polls.

Although who gets elected mayor probably has more effect on the average person's life than who gets elected president, in local elections there is a major fall off in voter interest. To win such a race as our law director campaign, then, fifty percent might only be about,300 votes.

To ensure victory in your political campaign, the first thing you must do is ensure that you'll get 50-percent-plus-one of the vote total in your election. Ask your mother if she will vote for you. It might not be a good idea to ask your spouse.

In one famous case, a candidate got only one vote: his own. His wife was quoted in the newspaper as saying she didn't think he had a good chance so she didn't vote for him. The newspaper gleefully reported this under a headline that read "One man, one vote!" Politics is a tough business.

When you get your mother's assurance that she will vote for you in your campaign, then start thinking about the number, the other 50 percent. This number is the focus of your campaign.

Just thinking about running for office can be intimidating. When you review past election statistics and realize that your only really need to win the votes of about ten percent of your city's population, though, you'll have a much better perspective on what you need to do. The number of votes you need to win a campaign is an attainable goal no matter what race you are running in.

Very early on in your campaign, you'll have to pick your target number. You have to target an exact number of how many votes you will have to get in order to win. You determine that number by looking at the results in past elections and by analyzing board of elections statistics.