Next month Burlington, Vermont is holding a Mayoral Election, using Instant Runoff Voting. Burlington TV station WCAX interviewed all four candidates for Mayor and asserted to them, “Historians say Abraham Lincoln would not have been elected in 1860 if Burlington’s Instant Runoff Voting Law was in effect.” The interviewer, Brian Joyce, then asked each Mayoral candidate to respond to that statement. Unfortunately, none of the candidates knew enough about the 1860 election to challenge the statement. Instead, each candidate acknowledged that the statement is true, but went on to say that even though they are glad Lincoln won in 1860, they are still glad Burlington uses IRV.
Actually, Abraham Lincoln won an absolute majority of the popular vote in states containing 166 electoral votes. Only 152 electoral votes were needed to win in 1860. Therefore, using IRV in each state (but keeping the electoral college) would still have resulted in a victory by Lincoln. The only states that Lincoln carried by less than an absolute popular vote majority were New Jersey, California, and Oregon, but they only had 14 electoral votes together, so Lincoln could have lost them and still been elected. As it was, Lincoln only got 4 electoral votes in New Jersey anyway, out of 7, because of a partial fusion slate of Lincoln’s opponents in that state.
Lincoln’s opponents (sometimes all three, sometimes just two of them) put together fusion slates of presidential elector candidates in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Texas. Those fusion slates did not win in any state, except New Jersey. Lincoln did not win the 1860 election because the opposition to him was split. No one “spoiled” the 1860 election, even though there were 4 strong candidates (the Northern Democratic candidate, the southern Democratic candidate, the Constitutional Union candidate, and Lincoln himself).
Maybe history is just not taught anywhere in Burlington.
Remember, that town elected a Socialist as mayor, and re-elected him.
No one who knows history would do that.
The CU nominee was John Bell of Tennessee, who, like Lincoln, was an ex-Whig. Bell and James K. Polk once ran against each other for speaker of the US House, and I believe Bell won.
The southern Dem nominee was the sitting vice president, 39-year-old John Breckinridge of Kentucky, who later served as Secretary of War for the Confederacy.
The northern Dem nominee, Sen. Stephen Douglas (1813-1861), finished fourth in electoral votes.
Richard: Besides Texas, what, if any, Southern states had slates of elector candidates pledged to Lincoln?
I may have misread what your post says about Texas.
Lincoln supporters distributed ballots containing Republican presidential elector candidates in these slave states: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia.
In Texas, supporters of Bell and Douglas had a fusion slate, hoping to beat the Breckinridge slate, but the fusion slate in Texas did not do well.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if fusion were used for Presidential electors. For example, say Democrats and Greens would have a fusion slate of Presidential electors and Republicans and Libertarians would have a fusion slate of Presidential electors.
Back when there were no government-printed ballots, fusion slates for presidential elector were easy to arrange. But nowadays all states have eliminated the right of voters to vote for individual presidential elector candidates and all but 6 states don’t even print the names of the presidential electors on the November ballot. Instead the slate’s preference for president is printed on the November ballot. So there is no way to handle a fusion slate of presidential electors in which some elector candidates are pledged to one presidential candidate and others on the same slate are pledged to another presidential candidate. There isn’t any mechanism on the ballot in any state to say “Vote here for a slate that contains some electors for presidential candidate X and some more electors for presidential candidate Y.”
Vocabulary is a problem when talking about this. “Fusion” is not really a good word, because then there is confusion with another type of fusion in presidential elections, in which two parties jointly nominate and support the same presidential candidate. That, of course, is entirely different.
The reported popular vote for Lincoln ignores all the pro-Union would-be votes in the Southern States. The same state legislatures that provided for burning books and newspapers at their borders also kept Lincoln’s name off the ballot there.
But looking at it another way, Lincoln with 40% and Stephen Douglas (Norfolk Doctrine)with 30% would both fight for Union, and Bell with 12% wanted Union but would not fight for it.
Should 18% rule 82% in a democracy, by ballots or by bullets? I think not, but some of my best friends…
Well, no one kept Lincoln’s name off any ballot in any states in 1860, because there were no government-printed ballots in 1860. Ballots were private and no government entity could prevent anyone from running. Voters could make their own ballots, but most voters just picked up a ballot from their favorite party.
1860 Lincoln UNDER 40 percent of the popular votes.
Folks can add up the Lincoln votes in the States which he won and divide by the total votes to show the REAL minority rule percentage.
Result –
620,000 DEAD Americans in 1861-1865 — and the wiped out southern States until even World War II.
—–
NONPARTISAN election of all elected executive officers and all judges using Approval Voting — vote for 1 or more, highest win.
TOTAL EVIL and monarchy is coming at the present EVIL trend of things since the EVIL gerrymander MONSTERS in the Congress and State legislatures are totally controlled by powermad special interest gangs — much worse than the gangs in 1860.
Since all states (except SC) used at-large election of individual presidential electors, then the presumption should be made that under an “IRV” system, voters would have ranked all their elector choices, and then the votes would have been counted using STV. After all, IRV is simply the degenerate form of STV applied to single-member elections.
Of course, most voters might have simply obtained their ballot from their favorite party (in New York, there might have been 35 party candidates ranked 1-35 and no others). So the election might well be similar to the STV elections in Australia where the final result could be as easily obtained by using a simple party proportional system like D’Hondt.
“Ballots were private and no government entity could prevent anyone from running. Voters could make their own ballots, but most voters just picked up a ballot from their favorite party.”
I wish we could go back to a system like this!
#2: John Bell and James K. Polk, both Tennesseeans, ran against each other twice for speaker of the US House. Bell won the first time, and Polk won the second time.
So assuming that the states used STV to appoint their electors, then you would have something like Lincoln 110, Breckinridge 73, Douglas 65, Bell 55. Breckinridge and Douglas might have swapped (I did an allocation of the fusion electors based on the number of electors for each candidate on the fusion slates for NJ, NY, and PA – voters might have ranked them differently).
The House had 15 Republican delegations, and there were 12 Southern delegations.
Illinois was split 5D, 4R; Missouri 6D, 1A (but likely a mix of Breckinridge and Douglas supporters); Maryland (6D, 1A, perhaps some Douglas supporters); California 2 D?; Oregon 1 D; Delaware 1 D. And in January, 1861 you have the representative-elect from Kansas. So the House would have to decide whether to seat him as a delegation of 1 Republican.
Let’s give Missouri, Delaware, and Maryland to Breckinridge, making it Lincoln 15, Breckinridge 15, with Illinois voting for Douglas. The 2 representative from California and 1 from Oregon hold the balance of power. Breckinridge is at this time the Vice President of the USA, and not a Confederate general or CSA Secretary of War. Joseph Lane (D-OR) is his VP candidate, so why wouldn’t the Oregon representative vote for Breckinridge, after all the voters back home almost gave him a plurality. Similar reasoning applies to California. So we either have Breckinridge elected, or a deadlock. If the deadlock persisted into the next Congress, Douglas dies in June, which would likely trigger the election of Breckinridge.
Meanwhile over in the Senate, we either have a contest between Hannibal Hamlin and either Herschel Johnson (former senator and governor from Georgia) on the Douglas ticket; or Joseph Lane (senator from Oregon) on the Breckinridge ticket. There are 26 Southern Democrats (including Gwin, Bright, Polk, and Lane), 26 Republicans, and 12 other Democrats, and 2 American.
Either Johnson or Lane are acceptable to the Democrats and is elected on the first ballot, and if the House remains deadlocked, serves as acting President.
BTW, the Senate at that time had Hannibal Hamlin, Stephen Douglas, Joseph Lane, Jefferson Davis, and Andrew Johnson.
Abraham Lincoln fades into history as an obscure one-term congressman from out west.
Mr. Winger,
Actually, Mr. Winger, you have YOUR facts wrong. The premise for my report was that IRV was the only voting law, as it ie here in Burlington. We consulted several historians and political scientists who unanimously opined that under that premise Lincoln would have lost. Period. Had you contacted me I would have explained that to you, very slowly.
Sincerely,
Brian Joyce
WCAX-TV
Re: Bell v. Polk – Actually THREE times. Bell won on the 10th ballot in the June 1834 election to fill in the unexpired term of Andrew Stevenson, who had resigned. Andrew Jackson protege Polk defeated Bell in both 1835 and 1837 to serve as speaker for the 24th and 25th Congresses. (Bell was also unsuccessful in 1839, but it was mostly his supporters who shifted to R.M.T. Hunter who did win on the 11th ballot)