[EL] William Jennings Bryan and the election of 1896

[Richard Winger]

Virtually every state was different in 1896.  In many states there were Bryan slates of presidential elector candidates with some elector candidates pledged to Sewell for v-p, and some others pledged to Watson.
Remember, the true candidates in November are the presidential elector candidates.  Before 1920, all states listed all candidates for presidential elector on November ballots, and voters were free to pick and choose any of them.  So it was possible for voters back then to vote for two, three, or more presidential candidates.  The newspapers and almanacs had a convention that when the election returns were reported, the newspapers and almanacs would use the top vote-getting elector from each ticket as a stand-in for the presidential candidate himself.
Some state ballots didn't even print the names of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates.  Voters saw party labels, and lists of candidates for presidential elector, and that was all.
Even as late as 1964, Alabama ballots listed various candidates for presidential elector under party labels and party circles, but didn't mention any presidential candidates.
 Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
      From: "Edelman, Paul" <paul.edelman at Law.Vanderbilt.Edu>
 To: "law-election at uci.edu" <law-election at uci.edu> 
 Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2015 3:03 PM
 Subject: [EL] William Jennings Bryan and the election of 1896
   
 <!--#yiv7160144847 _filtered #yiv7160144847 {font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv7160144847 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}#yiv7160144847 #yiv7160144847 p.yiv7160144847MsoNormal, #yiv7160144847 li.yiv7160144847MsoNormal, #yiv7160144847 div.yiv7160144847MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;}#yiv7160144847 a:link, #yiv7160144847 span.yiv7160144847MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv7160144847 a:visited, #yiv7160144847 span.yiv7160144847MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv7160144847 span.yiv7160144847EmailStyle17 {font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;color:windowtext;}#yiv7160144847 span.yiv7160144847EmailStyle18 {font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;color:#1F497D;}#yiv7160144847 .yiv7160144847MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv7160144847 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}#yiv7160144847 div.yiv7160144847WordSection1 {}-->     In the 1896 presidential election William Jennings Bryan was nominated by both the Democratic Party and the Populist Party, but the parties  nominated different men for Vice President- Sewall for the Democrats and Watson for the Populists.  It is not obvious, when counting votes, whether one should add together the votes Bryan received in each of his affiliations or to treat them separately. Evidently they were added together, at least according to the reports I have found. Does anyone know if there was a legal challenge to the method of counting the votes? Any pointers to a relevant literature would be appreciated.          Paul H. Edelman Professor of Mathematics and Law 615-322-0990 
_______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20150107/398f2786/attachment.html>