1948 United States Senate election in Georgia
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| Elections in Georgia |
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The1948 United States Senate election in Georgiatook place on November 2, 1948. Incumbent Democratic U.S. SenatorRichard Russell Jr.was re-elected to a fourth term in office.
As was common at the time, the Democratic candidate ran with no opposition in the general election so therefore the Democratic primary was the real contest, and winning the primary was consideredtantamount to election.
Democratic primary[edit]
The Democraticprimary electionwas held on September 8, 1948.
County unit system[edit]
From 1917 until 1962, theDemocratic Partyin theU.S. stateofGeorgiaused a voting system called thecounty unit systemto determine victors in statewide primary elections.[1]
The system was ostensibly designed to function similarly to theElectoral College,but in practice the large ratio of unit votes for small, rural counties to unit votes for more populous urban areas provided outsized political influence to the smaller counties.[2][3]
Under the county unit system, the 159 counties in Georgia were divided by population into three categories. The largest eight counties were classified as "Urban", the next-largest 30 counties were classified as "Town", and the remaining 121 counties were classified as "Rural". Urban counties were given 6 unit votes, Town counties were given 4 unit votes, and Rural counties were given 2 unit votes, for a total of 410 available unit votes. Each county's unit votes were awarded on awinner-take-allbasis.[2][3]
Candidates were required to obtain amajorityof unit votes (not necessarily a majority of the popular vote), or 206 total unit votes, to win the election. If no candidate received a majority in the initial primary, arunoff electionwas held between the top two candidates to determine a winner.[4]
Candidates[edit]
- William C. Lankford,formerU.S. Representative(write-in)
- Richard Russell Jr.,incumbentU.S. Senator
Results[edit]
| Democratic primary[5][6] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | % | CUV |
| Richard Russell Jr. | 703,048 | 99.98 | 410 |
| William C. Lankford | 118 | 0.02 | 0 |
General election[edit]
Results[edit]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Richard Russell Jr.(incumbent) | 362,104 | 99.89% | ||
| Write-In | Larkin Marshall | 388 | 0.11% | ||
| Write-In | Ellis Arnall | 9 | 0.00% | ||
| Write-In | Roy Harris | 2 | 0.00% | ||
| Write-In | Harry Sommers | 1 | 0.00% | ||
| Turnout | 362,504 | ||||
| Democratichold | Swing | ||||
References[edit]
- ^"County Unit System".Georgia County Clerks Association. Archived fromthe originalon May 31, 2008.RetrievedJune 8,2020.
- ^ab"Eugene Talmadge".The Jim Crow Encyclopedia.The African American Experience. Archived fromthe originalon January 23, 2015.RetrievedAugust 12,2013.
- ^ab"County Unit System, eh?".Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. October 6, 2011.RetrievedJune 8,2020.
- ^Buchanan, Scott (June 13, 2017)."County Unit System".New Georgia Encyclopedia.RetrievedJune 8,2020.
- ^Congressional Quarterly 1998,p. 113.
- ^Georgia Register 1950,pp. 570–573.
- ^Congressional Quarterly 1998,p. 84.
- ^Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives(March 1, 1949)."Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 2, 1948"(PDF).U.S. Government Printing Office.
- ^"GA US Senate, 1948".Our Campaigns.RetrievedSeptember 5,2021.
- ^Georgia Register 1950,pp. 611–613.
Bibliography[edit]
- Congressional Elections, 1946-1996.Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc. 1998.ISBN1-56802-248-4.
- Compiled by Mrs. J. E. Hays, State Historian and Director (1950).Georgia's Official Register, 1945-1950(PDF).Atlanta, Georgia: State of Georgia, Department of Archives and History.
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