Ambassador Nicholas Burns’ Remarks at 2024 Election Watch Party

Remarks by Ambassador Nicholas Burns
2024 Election Watch Party
U.S. Embassy to the People’s Republic of China

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to the American Embassy. It’s a pleasure to see so many Chinese friends, so many fellow ambassadors, so many members of the American community.

Election Day is the most important day for our democracy in the United States. And I think for all true democracies around the world.

In the U.S. today, more than 161 million registered voters will elect a new government, a new president, a new U.S. House of Representatives, new members of the United States Senate, new governors in many of our states, new state legislatures in 50 states, new mayors, and literally tens of thousands of new leaders at the local level: in our schools, in our boards of health, and in all those agencies that make up our county and local governments.

In most states like my own Massachusetts, the voters are asked to answer referendum questions on big and small issues. If the voters vote, yes, it becomes law. That’s direct democracy.

Election Day is also a day of hope. It’s a day when the people, not the powerful, decide, and when the people rule.

It’s the purest form of democracy in our country, and in our fellow democracies around the world. You can’t call yourself a democracy if you don’t let the people vote in a free, fair and transparent election.

In other words, democracy is at its best when the people can vote a government in or out of power, when they have alone the right to decide that question. So this is a great day.

As an American, I have great, great confidence in the strength of American democracy.

And in inviting so many Chinese friends here this morning we hope that you might see and that you might feel and that you might experience the power of the people’s vote and the power of “We the People” in American democracy.

Thank you so much. Have a great time this morning. Thank you.