Tuesday’s Historical Ballot

It’s a trick. This is a sample ballot from Hancock County Indiana for the 2012 election. Close observers will notice that the party symbols for Democrats and Republicans are different than we’re accustomed to. The Republican party symbol is an eagle and the Democratic symbol is a rooster. No donkeys in Indiana.

Indiana lays claim to being the birthplace of the Democratic rooster—from the 1840 election pitting Martin Van Buren against William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!). Van Buren, who presided over the Panic of 1837 and consequent economic depression, lost the 1840 election. 

You can find a highway marker commemorating the rooster in Greenfield, Indiana off East Main Street, near Apple Street. 

The rooster is still in use in several other states, such as West Virginia, as the Democratic party symbol. A white rooster was used in the South as a symbol of the white supremacist branch of the Democratic Party for many years. Indeed, Alabama’s Democratic Party did not switch over to the donkey until 1996, when it decided to reject the rooster due to the symbol’s association with segregationist policies in that state.

That last image is from Pennsylvania in 1852 celebrating the election of Franklin Pierce as President. I just liked it. 

Monday’s Historical Image This is a great looking presidential election board game from the late nineteenth century. The side medallions feature images of the first twenty-two presidents.   I have no idea what the rules of the game were then and am really curious if we were constructing a game today what the rules might be. Image Source: New York Historical Society
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Monday’s Historical Image

This is a great looking presidential election board game from the late nineteenth century. The side medallions feature images of the first twenty-two presidents.  

I have no idea what the rules of the game were then and am really curious if we were constructing a game today what the rules might be.

Image Source: New York Historical Society

Source: nyhistory.org

A Partial Photo History of Political Campaign Buses

That post I just did with the Eisenhower campaign bus made me think of all the other campaign buses out there. So I pulled a bunch of images together quickly. Rock the Vote’s is the most relevant for tomorrow’s National Voter Registration Day. But we’ve also got Thomas Dewey in 1948 there. Bush-Cheney’s from ‘04. Obama and McCain’s in ‘08. Sarah Palin’s from ‘11 and Romney’s from ‘12. 

I really don’t want to think too much about how they smell after a week’s campaigning.

Monday’s Historical Image Happy Constitution Day! On this day, 225 years ago, the Constitution was signed by 39 men in Philadelphia, the first step on its path to ratification. The convention itself had convened on May 25 in Independence Hall, shown in the above World War I-era propaganda poster. So by the time the Convention delegates signed the document in September, many of them had spent more than three months debating the structure of the new American government. They spent a lot of time complaining about the hot weather, too. For our purposes today, it’s probably worth noting that they created a system of government where: only one federal office was elected via popular vote (Representatives); the President was elected by the Electoral College; and where the right to vote was not guaranteed. Although the Constitution granted Congress the power to regulate federal elections, it generally left the administration of all elections to the states. In consequence, today we have almost 13,000 election administration districts and the rules governing elections are wildly diverse. Polling hours vary from state to state; ballot design is random and often amateurish; voter registration rules are inconsistent…well the list goes on. There have been some notable efforts by the federal government to impose some base level uniformity on our voting systems: the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Voter Registration Act (1993) and the Help America Vote Act (2002). But by and large, voting systems are not subject to any national quality standards. You may be better guaranteed that your eggs will be safe to eat than you are that your democracy will work. The National Constitution Center has some nice resources for people who want to celebrate Constitution Day. Oddly, no party hats for sale on the site though. Image Source: Library of Congress
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Monday’s Historical Image

Happy Constitution Day!

On this day, 225 years ago, the Constitution was signed by 39 men in Philadelphia, the first step on its path to ratification. The convention itself had convened on May 25 in Independence Hall, shown in the above World War I-era propaganda poster. So by the time the Convention delegates signed the document in September, many of them had spent more than three months debating the structure of the new American government. They spent a lot of time complaining about the hot weather, too.

For our purposes today, it’s probably worth noting that they created a system of government where: only one federal office was elected via popular vote (Representatives); the President was elected by the Electoral College; and where the right to vote was not guaranteed.

Although the Constitution granted Congress the power to regulate federal elections, it generally left the administration of all elections to the states. In consequence, today we have almost 13,000 election administration districts and the rules governing elections are wildly diverse. Polling hours vary from state to state; ballot design is random and often amateurish; voter registration rules are inconsistent…well the list goes on.

There have been some notable efforts by the federal government to impose some base level uniformity on our voting systems: the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Voter Registration Act (1993) and the Help America Vote Act (2002). But by and large, voting systems are not subject to any national quality standards. You may be better guaranteed that your eggs will be safe to eat than you are that your democracy will work.

The National Constitution Center has some nice resources for people who want to celebrate Constitution Day. Oddly, no party hats for sale on the site though.

Image Source: Library of Congress

Tuesday’s Historical Ballot Last week, Al Gore called for the abolition of the Electoral College—more than ten years after its arcane workings cost him the presidential election. (By way of recap, Gore got about half a million more votes than George W. Bush in 2000. But because he lost Florida, all of its Electoral College votes swung to Bush, and with that Bush got more than 270 Electoral College votes and the presidency). So in honor of the Electoral College, here’s a ballot from the 1876 election, the second time (out of four) that the Electoral College sent the man with fewer votes than his opponent to the White House. In 1878, New Yorker Samuel B. Tilden won the popular vote over Rutherford B. Hayes. But Hayes ultimately became President. (It’s a long, complicated story involving rival slates of electors from several southern states and a deal cut in an honest-to-god smoke filled room….fascinating, tragic American history that laid the groundwork for Jim Crow in the South). Pretty much every effort during the last 200+ years to reform or abolish the Electoral College has foundered. There’s one attempt underway now that seems to have a little traction. It’s called the National Popular Vote. And boy, it is not easy to explain. But here goes. As you may or may not know, it takes 270 (out of 538) votes to win the Electoral College and the presidency. There’s a fun (well my kind of fun) website that lets you play around with the Electoral College vote allocation and create your own route to 270, depending on how you think each of the states will swing to Romney or Obama. It’s here. So, how do you get into this college? There’s no SAT for this one. First, each state is allocated member of the Electoral College based on its population. Thus, each state gets as many Electoral College votes as it has members of its congressional delegation. Then, each state gets two more college votes, just like it gets two Senators. After the election is over, almost every state gives whoever won the popular vote in the state all its Electoral College votes. So, if Romney wins Michigan by even one vote, he will get all sixteen of its college votes. With that background, here’s how the National Popular Vote proposal to reform the Electoral College would work. It’s an interstate compact. States that sign up for it pledge to allocate their college votes to the winner of the national popular vote, not to the winner of state popular vote. As soon as enough states sign up, i.e. states with 270 or more college votes, then the compact will go into effect. Whoever wins the national popular vote, wins at least 270 Electoral College votes. It’s a clever solution, and its backers are halfway there, in other words states with 135 college votes have already signed up for it. And, no, I do not know what the college’s mascot is. Image Source: University of Virginia PS That was a simplified explanation of how the college works.
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Tuesday’s Historical Ballot

Last week, Al Gore called for the abolition of the Electoral College—more than ten years after its arcane workings cost him the presidential election. (By way of recap, Gore got about half a million more votes than George W. Bush in 2000. But because he lost Florida, all of its Electoral College votes swung to Bush, and with that Bush got more than 270 Electoral College votes and the presidency).

So in honor of the Electoral College, here’s a ballot from the 1876 election, the second time (out of four) that the Electoral College sent the man with fewer votes than his opponent to the White House. In 1878, New Yorker Samuel B. Tilden won the popular vote over Rutherford B. Hayes. But Hayes ultimately became President. (It’s a long, complicated story involving rival slates of electors from several southern states and a deal cut in an honest-to-god smoke filled room….fascinating, tragic American history that laid the groundwork for Jim Crow in the South).

Pretty much every effort during the last 200+ years to reform or abolish the Electoral College has foundered. There’s one attempt underway now that seems to have a little traction. It’s called the National Popular Vote. And boy, it is not easy to explain. But here goes.

As you may or may not know, it takes 270 (out of 538) votes to win the Electoral College and the presidency. There’s a fun (well my kind of fun) website that lets you play around with the Electoral College vote allocation and create your own route to 270, depending on how you think each of the states will swing to Romney or Obama. It’s here.

So, how do you get into this college? There’s no SAT for this one. First, each state is allocated member of the Electoral College based on its population. Thus, each state gets as many Electoral College votes as it has members of its congressional delegation. Then, each state gets two more college votes, just like it gets two Senators.

After the election is over, almost every state gives whoever won the popular vote in the state all its Electoral College votes. So, if Romney wins Michigan by even one vote, he will get all sixteen of its college votes.

With that background, here’s how the National Popular Vote proposal to reform the Electoral College would work. It’s an interstate compact. States that sign up for it pledge to allocate their college votes to the winner of the national popular vote, not to the winner of state popular vote. As soon as enough states sign up, i.e. states with 270 or more college votes, then the compact will go into effect. Whoever wins the national popular vote, wins at least 270 Electoral College votes.

It’s a clever solution, and its backers are halfway there, in other words states with 135 college votes have already signed up for it.

And, no, I do not know what the college’s mascot is.

Image Source: University of Virginia

PS That was a simplified explanation of how the college works.
Tuesday’s Historical Ballot In honor of Vice President Joe Biden, who will be giving a speech at this weeks Democratic Convention, I decided to post a historical ballot from Delaware. This ballot is from 1942, and one of its interesting features is the presence of a Prohibition Party candidate. As hopefully everyone knows, America’s grand experiment in alcohol prohibition ended on December 5, 1933. This is a day that lives in annual, raucous celebration in my neighborhood. So, by 1942, the Prohibition Party was on its last legs, and its Senate candidate drew very few votes. C. Douglass Buck, the Republican Senate candidate listed on this ballot, won the seat in 1942. He defeated the wonderfully named E. Ennalls Berl. When I was trying to learn more about Berl I came across his name in IMDB, as it seems he had a role, “Bryant,” in Terminator 2: Judgment Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or at least I allowed myself to briefly think so, since I always hope losing politicians find new, productive careers. But I think it was probably one of Berl’s sons or grandsons who ascended to these heights. Image Source: Delaware Public Archives
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Tuesday’s Historical Ballot

In honor of Vice President Joe Biden, who will be giving a speech at this weeks Democratic Convention, I decided to post a historical ballot from Delaware. This ballot is from 1942, and one of its interesting features is the presence of a Prohibition Party candidate. As hopefully everyone knows, America’s grand experiment in alcohol prohibition ended on December 5, 1933. This is a day that lives in annual, raucous celebration in my neighborhood. So, by 1942, the Prohibition Party was on its last legs, and its Senate candidate drew very few votes.

C. Douglass Buck, the Republican Senate candidate listed on this ballot, won the seat in 1942. He defeated the wonderfully named E. Ennalls Berl. When I was trying to learn more about Berl I came across his name in IMDB, as it seems he had a role, “Bryant,” in Terminator 2: Judgment Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or at least I allowed myself to briefly think so, since I always hope losing politicians find new, productive careers. But I think it was probably one of Berl’s sons or grandsons who ascended to these heights.

Image Source: Delaware Public Archives

Many Americans are disenfranchised and some states are ignored because of the Electoral College, and it’s time to abandon it, former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday night as part of Current TV’s coverage of the Republican National Convention.

National Journal - Al Gore Calls for End of the Electoral College 

It’s an interesting development—more than a decade after Gore won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college vote to George W. Bush. Gore is one of four men who lost the presidency to the mysterious, arcane workings of the Electoral College. In 1824, Andrew Jackson lost the presidency to John Quincy Adams. In 1876, Samuel Tilden lost the election to Rutherford B. Hayes. And in 1888, Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison.

After three botched elections in the nineteenth century, the meschuge workings of the Electoral College faded into distant memory in the twentieth century. Until the 2000 election. Most people remember 2000 for hanging chads and butterfly ballots. But, in fact, Gore won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. And at the time, he accepted the result and did not call for reform of or abolition of the college. 

We’ll be bringing you more on the Electoral College in coming posts. 

Source: nationaljournal.com

Tuesday’s Historical Ballot The party of Lincoln meets in Tampa this week to nominate a former Massachusetts governor to be its standard bearer in this November’s presidential election.  The ballot above is from 1860 and was printed in Boston, Massachusetts.  Until the turn of the twentieth century, voters brought their own ballots to the polls.  Political parties printed ballots with only the party’s nominees and distributed them to voters.   You won’t find any nineteenth century equivalents of the butterfly ballot.  But on the other hand, there was not much privacy in voting. Image Source: American Antiquarian Society
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Tuesday’s Historical Ballot

The party of Lincoln meets in Tampa this week to nominate a former Massachusetts governor to be its standard bearer in this November’s presidential election. 

The ballot above is from 1860 and was printed in Boston, Massachusetts.  Until the turn of the twentieth century, voters brought their own ballots to the polls.  Political parties printed ballots with only the party’s nominees and distributed them to voters.  

You won’t find any nineteenth century equivalents of the butterfly ballot.  But on the other hand, there was not much privacy in voting.

Image Source: American Antiquarian Society

Happy Nineteenth Amendment Ratification Day - Sort Of Ninety-two years ago today, women got the right to vote.  On August 18, 1920 twenty-four-year-old Tennessee state legislator Harry Burn cast the decisive vote in that state’s legislature in favor of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  Burn had originally opposed ratification but famously changed his vote under pressure from his mother. With Tennessee’s ratification of the amendment, women’s century long quest for the vote in the United States was over.  August 18 is celebrated as ratification day.  But in fact, Tennessee did not actually ratify the amendment until August 24.  After Burn switched his vote, anti-women’s suffrage legislators fled the state capitol, depriving the legislature of a quorum to do business.  (Sound familiar?)  Eventually, pro-suffrage forces prevailed, and Tennessee formally ratified the amendment on August 24.   The photo above shows Alice Paul, one of the founders of the National Women’s Party, unfurling a ratification flag in front of the party’s DC headquarters on August 18, 1920.   Incidentally, women didn’t get the vote in Switzerland until 1971.  They are not due to get it in Saudi Arabia until 2015. Photo Credit: Library of Congress
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Happy Nineteenth Amendment Ratification Day - Sort Of

Ninety-two years ago today, women got the right to vote.  On August 18, 1920 twenty-four-year-old Tennessee state legislator Harry Burn cast the decisive vote in that state’s legislature in favor of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  Burn had originally opposed ratification but famously changed his vote under pressure from his mother.

With Tennessee’s ratification of the amendment, women’s century long quest for the vote in the United States was over.  August 18 is celebrated as ratification day.  But in fact, Tennessee did not actually ratify the amendment until August 24.  After Burn switched his vote, anti-women’s suffrage legislators fled the state capitol, depriving the legislature of a quorum to do business.  (Sound familiar?)  Eventually, pro-suffrage forces prevailed, and Tennessee formally ratified the amendment on August 24.  

The photo above shows Alice Paul, one of the founders of the National Women’s Party, unfurling a ratification flag in front of the party’s DC headquarters on August 18, 1920.  

Incidentally, women didn’t get the vote in Switzerland until 1971.  They are not due to get it in Saudi Arabia until 2015.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Source: lcweb2.loc.gov

Tuesday’s Historical Ballot I’m not a presidential campaigns expert, but I think the last time a Wisconsinite was on a presidential election ballot was in 1924, when Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette ran on the Progressive ticket.  So in honor of Paul Ryan’s upcoming appearance at the top of the ballot this November, here’s a copy of a 1924 ballot from New York. LaFollette spent most of his life as Republican and sought that party’s nomination for the presidency in 1912.  He lost it to William Howard Taft, who in turn lost the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.   By 1924, LaFollette had irrevocably broken with the Republican Party.  In the presidential election that year, he won approximately 17 percent of the vote and all of Wisconsin’s 13 Electoral College votes.  But Calvin Coolidge, from Vermont, won the presidency. LaFollette advocated socialization of railroads and utilities, union rights, cheap credit, and the requirement of a national referendum before a President could lead the nation into war. Love of brats, beer and cheese aside, it doesn’t feel like he and Ryan would have much in common.  Actually, Ryan is such a health nut that you have to wonder whether the two Wisconsinites would even have those three fine Wisconsin products in common. 
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Tuesday’s Historical Ballot

I’m not a presidential campaigns expert, but I think the last time a Wisconsinite was on a presidential election ballot was in 1924, when Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette ran on the Progressive ticket.  So in honor of Paul Ryan’s upcoming appearance at the top of the ballot this November, here’s a copy of a 1924 ballot from New York.

LaFollette spent most of his life as Republican and sought that party’s nomination for the presidency in 1912.  He lost it to William Howard Taft, who in turn lost the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.  

By 1924, LaFollette had irrevocably broken with the Republican Party.  In the presidential election that year, he won approximately 17 percent of the vote and all of Wisconsin’s 13 Electoral College votes.  But Calvin Coolidge, from Vermont, won the presidency.

LaFollette advocated socialization of railroads and utilities, union rights, cheap credit, and the requirement of a national referendum before a President could lead the nation into war.

Love of brats, beer and cheese aside, it doesn’t feel like he and Ryan would have much in common.  Actually, Ryan is such a health nut that you have to wonder whether the two Wisconsinites would even have those three fine Wisconsin products in common.