1808

[jimrtex]

Massachusetts switches back to legislative appointment of electors.  Pinckney was somewhat more competitive against Madison than he had been against Jefferson 4 years earlier, winning New Hampshire and Rhode Island, plus 5 electors chosen by district in Maryland and North Carolina.

Electors chosen by popular vote: NH(7), RI(4), NJ(8 ), PA(20), MD(11), VA(24), NC(14), KY(8 ), TN(5), and OH(3), 104 total.

By legislature: MA(19), CT(9), NY (19), DE(3), SC(10), GA(6), and VT(6), 72 total.

New Hampshire 7 electors.

Pinckney secures a 52.4% to 47.6% victory, despite winning only 2 of 6 counties, by piling up big majorities in the Connecticut valley.

Rhode Island 4 electors.

Pinckney 54.1%, Madison 45.9%.  Madison carries Providence by a narrow (0.4%) margin.

New Jersey 8 electors.

Madison 55.7%, Pinckney 44.2%, with Pinckney generally doing better in the southern part of the state.

Pennyslvania 20 electors.

Madison 78.4%, Pinckney 21.6%.

Madison carries all counties but Delaware.  Philadelphia is a bit closer than 1804: Madison 6,238 Pinckney 2,956.

Maryland 11 electors.

Maryland chooses its electors from 9 electoral districts, with 2 districts choosing 2 electors.  Despite a 63.6% to 36.6% statewide victory, Pinckney manages too win 2 electors from the southernmost districts on opposite shores of the Cheasapeake.

Virginia 24 electors.

Little support for Pinckney, as a slate pledged to James Monroe manages 17.6% of the vote against his fellow Virginian, James Madison.

North Carolina 14 electors.

North Carolina continues to choose its electors by districts, and Pinckney manages to win 3.  2 are generally along the Neuse River from Raleigh to New Bern.

Kentucky 8 electors.

4 electors are chosen from each of two districts.  There continues to be significant variation, with the leading candidate in the Northern District receiving 2,679 votes while the 4th candidate received 1,860 votes.  A 5th (unelected) candidate receives 1,394 votes.

Tennessee 5 electors.

Electors chosen from 5 electoral districts.  No returns available.

Ohio 3 electors.

Madison 75.6%, Pinckney 24.4%

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Does the book contain more information on these elections?

[A18]

So I take it Pinckney and Madison were the only candidates in these states where the split was like 52.4% to 47.6% (NH) and Madison 78.4%, Pinckney 21.6% (PA)?

Can I add this information to Wikipedia?

[jimrtex]

Does the book contain more information on these elections?

There is very little text other than footnotes.  It is pretty much just election returns.   The amount of data varies a lot between states.  Usually, the primary source is a newspaper rather than official records.  I can't tell whether the newspapers were using canvas results or their own compilation of results.

In some states, county results are available and at least have the appearance of completeness.  In other states like North Carolina there are county results from about half of the counties.  Even when there are county results, there are some 431-0 and 0-321 results.  I don't know whether these are accurate, or the votes for the losing candidate has been lost.

The results for 1808 cover 4 pages.  In his introduction, Durbin says that he started out to compile results prior to 1824, but then discovered that county results weren't generally available from 1823 to 1832, and then decided to extend the results through the 1860 election (due to its watershed nature).   But I think some of this might be so that he had enough material for a book.

It also includes a map section showing boundaries of electoral district boundaries.  This is one of the most complete sections of the book - perhaps they are able to find the state laws, even when election returns have been lost.

[jimrtex]

So I take it Pinckney and Madison were the only candidates in these states where the split was like 52.4% to 47.6% (NH) and Madison 78.4%, Pinckney 21.6% (PA)?

I don't know.   I think that the book was attempting to give a modern appearance to the results, with percentages for the candidates in states where there appear to be complete results.

In many cases where the electors were chosen statewide, they still ran as individual candidates.  This was true through at least the early 1900s.
Traditionally, only the leading candidate was reported.  There is nothing in the book that indicates whether the primary sources had collapsed the results for a candidate to that for a party, or whether the author had done so for consistency and simplification.  Since none of the states that chose electors statewide split their electoral vote in 1808, the identity of the slates was apparently well enough known that voters could cast a vote for a set of candidates who would support their preferred party.

In 1808, the only results for individual candidates is for Kentucky.  In the Northern District there are results for 17 candidates.  Only the top 4 (elected) are positively indicated as being (Democrat-Republicans).  I have no idea what platform the others ran on.  For the Southern District 10 candidates are listed, again with the top four marked as (D-R), but no vote totals are available except for the last place candidate who received 54 votes and indicated as being a Federalist.

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I would be inclined not to since everything is coming from a single source.  Perhaps that electors were chosen by popular vote before 1824, and the methods that were used.