We wouldn’t advise it, but if you want to provoke some outrage tell Laura Sampson that your single vote isn’t worth the time it takes to cast it. We know Sampson, three times a loser in her quest for the Precinct 7 seat on the Lumberton City Council, to be a nice lady, but that might be a test she would struggle to pass.

On Tuesday, Sampson came up one vote shy of tying incumbent Councilman Leon Maynor in that race, the second time she was barely denied a seat at the table. It was in 2007 that Sampson lost to Maynor by a single vote before a recount left them tied and another election was ordered, which Maynor won comfortably.

In 2011, the same two paired off with Maynor again winning rather easily.

As we pen this, it’s unclear what a recount will reveal, so we won’t declare Maynor the winner again. But it is clear once again that a single vote does matter.

More proof?

Ask David Shook, a Red Springs commissioner who — according to unofficial results — may have lost his seat by a single vote.

Or look northward and to St. Pauls, where longtime Mayor Gordon Westbrook looks to have lost his seat to sitting Commissioner Jerry Weindel by a scant three votes.

Or gaze westward, where Pembroke residents favored Allen Dial, a former commissioner, by just seven votes.

There are plenty of other examples in Tuesday’s election of the value of a single vote, but it’s a tired song — and it doesn’t appear that anyone is listening to its message.

Despite polls being open now for nine days, just 26 percent of the eligible voters in Robeson County cast ballots in the municipal election, roughly the same percentage as in Lumberton, where a high-profile mayor’s race teased us with a promise of a robust showing at the polls.

Some other Tuesday tidbits:

— We are aware of only one comprehensive hauling campaign, and that was in Pembroke, where Dial drove himself to victory. It is certain that Dial benefited from a four-candidate field that split the vote as he claimed only 36 percent of the ballots. Dial is a polarizing figure, so Pembroke voters come in two groups, for him or against him, and almost two-thirds of the voters didn’t want him as mayor. But he will be absent a big surprise.

— We were pleased to see Charles Kemp, a longtime commissioner and former mayor in Fairmont, retake a seat on that town’s board. Kemp lost his mayor’s gavel in a surprise four years ago, but his efforts to make Fairmont a better place to live have never paused. Fairmont residents rewarded him by making him the top vote-getting for that town’s board.

— The Lumberton City Council will look quite different after the swearing-in ceremony in December. Not only is the city getting a new mayor in Bruce Davis, but it will get three new council members, Leroy Rising in Precinct 1, a seat Don Metzger gave up while pursuing the mayor’s seat, Karen Altman Higley in Precinct 4, where Harry Ivey stepped aside, and Chris Howard in Precinct 6 seat, where Robert Jones did not seek re-election. Change could be even more dramatic is a recount allows Sampson to surpass Maynor.

— Apathy wasn’t limited to voters, and explains the lack of candidates in some places. Write-in ballots will determine two seats on the Lumber Bridge council, and four aldermen seats in Orrum. That assumes the write-in winners will take the seats.