National ‘One More Rest Stop’ Plebiscite Fails by 12 Votes, Nation Mourns

The National “One More Rest Stop” Plebiscite failed by 12 votes Tuesday, dashing the hopes of millions of Thanksgiving drivers who had campaigned for a federally mandated final rest stop “within a reasonable distance of grandmother’s house.”

“Twelve votes,” said campaign director Susan Bellamy, 54, staring at the results board in the campaign’s headquarters — a minivan parked outside a rest area at mile marker 88. “Twelve people in this country said no to one more rest stop. I want their names. I want to know what kind of bladder they have.”

The plebiscite, the first national referendum on rest-stop policy, asked voters a single question: “Shall there be one more rest stop?” Supporters argued that every Thanksgiving drive features a moment — usually 40 minutes from the destination — when “one more rest stop” becomes a moral imperative. Opponents, a coalition of “we’re almost there” optimists and fathers who “don’t need to stop,” argued the nation already has enough rest stops “if you’d just gone when we stopped last time.”

Turnout was the highest for any single-issue vote in history, with 89 million ballots cast, many by passengers voting from the backseat “out of pure desperation,” according to exit polls. The measure led all night, then faltered in the final count when, Bellamy alleged, “a precinct in the suburbs reported 400 votes from people who were already home, which is exactly the kind of smugness we’re fighting.”

The defeat was felt immediately on the nation’s highways. “We were 30 minutes out,” said driver Marcus Webb, 36, who had voted yes. “My daughter said the words. ‘One more rest stop?’ And I had to tell her the nation said no. She cried. I cried. We drove the 30 minutes in silence. The silence was the plebiscite’s legacy.”

Campaign finance records show the “Yes on One More” committee raised $4 million, mostly in small donations from gas stations, while the opposition raised $12, “which tells you everything about the passion gap,” Bellamy said.

Bellamy vowed to bring the measure back next year. “Twelve votes is not a defeat. It’s a rounding error with consequences. Next Thanksgiving, we return — better organized, better hydrated, and stopping as many times as we want, because we’re the ones driving.”