Election Flashback!!

An American Paratrooper killed in action in Vietnam,1966

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote :
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose,New York Times
(9/4/1967: p. 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were
surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout
in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a
Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the
5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots
yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened
by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the
Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the
two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the
nation election based on the incomplete returns
reaching here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State
Department nor the White House would comment on the
balloting or the victory of the military candidates,
Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for
president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate
for vice president.

A successful election has long been seen as the
keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging
the growth of constitutional processes in South
Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a
constitutional development that began in January,
1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal
commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu,
the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

Significance Not Diminished

The hope here is that the new government will be able
to maneuver with a confidence and legitimacy long
lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That hope could
have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating
widespread scorn or a lack of interest in
constitutional development, or by the Vietcong's
disruption of the balloting.

The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in
the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62
per cent.