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

Thu Jul 18 12:25:14 PDT 2019

My thanks to Richard.

The full text of the Svendsen book is available online on the Hathi Trust
website: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001156480

Prof. Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law

On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 8:21 AM Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> 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
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Law-election mailing list
> >> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> >> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Law-election mailing list
> >> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> >> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > Rob Richie
> > President and CEO, FairVote
> > 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
> > Takoma Park, MD 20912
> > rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
> > FairVote Facebook  FairVote Twitter  My Twitter
> >
> > Thank you for considering a donation. Enjoy our video on ranked choice
> voting!
> > (Note: Our Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)
> > _______________________________________________
> > Law-election mailing list
> > Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> > https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Carl Klarner
> Klarnerpolitics.org
> Former Associate Professor of Political Science
> Academic & Consultant
> Carl.Klarner at gmail.com
> Cell: 812-514-9060
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> https://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/20190718/d8292603/attachment.html>