[EL] State-by-state popular vote statistics for presidential elections from 1796 (or as early as possible) through 2016

[Richard Winger]

For early years, see Michael J. Dubin's "United States Presidential Elections 1788-1860", published 1998 by McFarland & Co.
Also see Svend Petersen's "A Statistical History of the American Presidential Elections", published 1963 by Frederick Ungar, for years earlier than 1964.
These two authors did their own intense historical research and both were utterly devoted to accuracy.
For 1952-1976, the best source are the various editions of America Votes, published by Congressional Quarterly, which are in most mid-size and large libraries.  Starting in 1980, America Votes is great, but the Federal Election Commission's election returns books are even better.  The FEC books are all titled "Federal Elections (fill in year)".

Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147 

    On Thursday, July 18, 2019, 7:00:01 AM PDT, Carl Klarner <carl.klarner at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Hi Mark,

If your institution has access to CQ's Elections and Voting Collection
(many institutions don't subscribe), that has state level presidential
election returns going way back in electronic format.

ICPSR has the following dataset you can download (your institution is
probably an ICPSR member).
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/series/00059

I would say Dave Leip's data is reliable.  If you don't want to mess
with the files above, you could download Dave Leip's data, and then
spot check it against the book Stuart cited (which is in most
libraries).

Carl

On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 6:23 AM Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:
>
> I'll note that quite a few states did not allocate electoral votes according to a statewide popular vote until Andrew Jackson’s presidency (and not every state held a presidential election until 1872, with another blip in 1876 before all states holding elections starting in 1880, albeit without suffrage rights for a majority of adult adjust until 1920). FairVote a few years ago did a piece on how use of the winner take all rule and use of statewide popular votes here:
>
> https://www.fairvote.org/how-the-electoral-college-became-winner-take-all
>
>
> James Madison proposed banning the winner take all rule just as it was becoming the norm, notably. See.
>
> https://www.fairvote.org/why-james-madison-wanted-to-change-the-way-we-vote-for-president
>
>
> When people quote Alexander Hamiton on the "most excellent" Electoral College or tell modern reformers "so you think you're smarter than the framers," they may not realize that the framers and the opening generation of American political leaders did not make use of the Electoral College anything like we do today. But they also weren't timid about change. Perhaps it was their revolutionary spirit, perhaps it was that most had been part of a living debate about the roots of government structures and systems, but they were quick to change presidential selection rules and practices that weren't working - both by statute at the state level and with constitutional change like the 12th amendment, that was a major departure from the first Electoral College system.
>
>
> Ironically, we then got saddled with the winner take all rule by popular vote in states - not because it was a fair or effective national system of picking the president, but because it was in the self-interest of any particular state trying to maximize the advantages of its majority. And today we have a defenders of tradition less ready to take action for necessary changes. Or at least that's how I see it!
>
>
> Rob
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 5:53 AM Charles H Stewart <cstewart at mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Try _Presidential elections, 1789–2008,_ Washington, CQ Press, 2010, starting at p. 190.
>>
>>
>> Charles Stewart III
>> MIT
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Jul 18, 2019, at 4:25 AM, Mark Scarberry <mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:
>>
>> I am trying to find information about the popular vote in presidential elections by state from 1796 (or as early as possible) through 2016. I realize that, early on, some states' legislatures picked the electors, so that in some cases there would be no state popular vote data.
>>
>> Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, https://uselectionatlas.org/, has such data going back to the 1824 election. Does anyone know whether his data is reliable?
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> Prof. Mark S. Scarberry
>> Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
>>
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>
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-- 
Dr. Carl Klarner
Klarnerpolitics.org
Former Associate Professor of Political Science
Academic & Consultant
Carl.Klarner at gmail.com
Cell: 812-514-9060
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