The Georgia County Unit System

[RBH]

For those of you who thought they've seen it all when it comes to election systems. Let me introduce you to the Georgia county unit system.

Georgia has 159 counties. Why? Because.

Until 1962, they had the County Unit System.

The top 8 counties had 3 representatives in the State House, and 6 unit votes

The middle 30 counties had 2 representatives in the house and 4 unit votes

The other 121 counties had 1 representative and 2 unit votes

To summarize

total - 410 votes

top 8 - 48 votes
middle 30 - 120 votes
lowest 121 - 242 votes

This system did make it pretty easy for the Talmadges to win power without carrying Atlanta or any other big cities.

The Supreme Court shot the County Unit System down in 1962 in the Gray v. Sanders decision, using the phrase "One Man, One Vote"

Just for fun.. here's some maps

The Unit system, circa 1960:



And if we had the system today, the state of Georgia would be divided as follows:



And the results for the Presidential race using the Unit System

Bush - 326 (58% of the popular vote, 80% of the unit vote)
Kerry - 84 (41%/20%)

Perdue - 296 (51%/73%)
Barnes - 112 (46%/27%)

So yeah.. The Unit System.. an American classic

[J-Mann]

A variation of the Electoral College on the state level, it seems.  I'm guessing that the "top 8 counties" that you mention had over a certain population and that allocation of the votes was based on such, correct?

[RBH]

Actually.. I think the system was 8/30/121 for most or all of the time

I don't know how many changes they made with that system though.

[True Federalist]

South Carolina had a similar system.

1 Senator from each of the 46 counties.
124 Representatives apportioned between the counties in the same manner that the US House gets apportioned.  If we still used it, then our House wouldn't be that badly out of whack, but the Senate would be heavily tilted in favor of the small counties.

The legislative delegation from each county also doubled as the county council for each county up until the 1970 Home Rule Act set up independent county councils.

There are still some provisions in State law that remain in force from this system.  In order for a new county to formed, all of the affect counties and the new county have to have at least 1/124 of the population of the State and if anew county was formed, the size of the State Senate would increase by 1.

[Philip]

A ridiculous activist court decision that should be overturned.