Why was turnout in the South so low 1876-1968?
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  Why was turnout in the South so low 1876-1968?
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Author Topic: Why was turnout in the South so low 1876-1968?  (Read 2338 times)
ElectionsGuy
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« on: July 18, 2014, 01:49:41 AM »
« edited: July 30, 2014, 02:12:40 PM by ElectionsGuy »

I've been browsing through state results of presidential elections lately, and I've found a staggering difference between the turnout of former confederate states compared to turnout of everywhere else. ITs also literally once you hit the confederate states turnout immediately goes down. West Virginia had higher turnout than Virginia for most of this period despite it being half as small (or more than half) in population. Here are some examples...

1892:

Mississippi - 52,519 total votes - 9 EV's
Nebraska - 200,192 total votes - 8 EV's

1908:

Georgia - 132,504 total votes - 13 EV's
Iowa - 494,789 total votes - 13 EV's

1936:

Texas - 849,736 total votes - 23 EV's
California - 2,638,882 total votes - 22 EV's

There are countless examples, so why? Obviously there was discrimination and Jim Crow with a sizable black population, most of whom didn't vote or couldn't vote. But what else? The only other thing I can think of is lack of good education and poverty, which has always existed in the south (but turnout is better today). Discuss.
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BaconBacon96
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« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2014, 03:10:42 AM »

It's clearly a combination of blacks not voting, poor whites not voting and maybe even potential Republican supporters who declined to show up.

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Cassius
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« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2014, 05:03:31 AM »

In addition to what you said, perhaps as well because of the fact that since the Democratic candidate nearly always ran up such huge margins in the election, many voters couldn't be bothered to vote because very little was at stake.
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solarstorm
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« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2014, 06:23:07 AM »

1892:

Mississippi - 52,519 total votes - 9 EV's
Nebraska - 200,192 total votes - 8 EV's

1908:

Georgia - 132,504 total votes - 13 EV's
Iowa - 494,789 total votes - 13 EV's

1936:

Texas - 849,736 total votes - 23 EV's
California - 2,638,882 total votes - 22 EV's

And here's another reason why the Electoral College should be abolished...
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bedstuy
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« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2014, 08:54:45 AM »

Obviously there was discrimination and Jim Crow with a sizable black population, most of whom didn't vote or couldn't vote.

This is most of the answer right here.  Remember, some of your data is before the Great Migration and before that the vast majority of black people lived in the South.  So, most of the black population was subject to legal discrimination and a campaign of terrorism.


There's a few things, most of which also fall under the main heading, Jim Crow but may have affected others.

1.  Southern states had poll taxes.  So, you had to pay a fee to register to vote and each year when you voted.  These were low in dollar value, but the South was poor and most people were farmers.  Tenant farmers had most of their assets tied up their farm, most of the year.  So, that prevented a lot of poor whites from voting to (if the laws were actually applied to poor whites).

2.  Literacy tests.  A higher percentage of the population was illiterate, especially in the South so this had an effect.

3.  Democratic Party domination of the process.  The South was very corrupt and there was a lot of ballot box stuffing and votes were thrown away.  The primary process was even worse.  Some states actually banned blacks from party primaries under the idea that a party was a private association.  So, by the time the general election came around, these Southern states already had a horrible race-baiting segregationist as the only viable candidate.
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shua
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« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2014, 04:17:40 PM »

That literacy gap between North and South was much more dramatic at the beginning of that period than today (as seen in this map).  In some states more than just blacks more limited in voting, also the discrimination was toward the wrong kind of whites.  Thus differences in how tightly the vote was controlled contributed to a smaller turnout in VA than NC even after the former was surpassed by the latter in % black population.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2014, 04:24:43 AM »

Besides blacks, the Jim Crow laws in most States also disenfranchised most of the white working class.
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Mechaman
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« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2014, 01:04:37 PM »

Besides blacks, the Jim Crow laws in most States also disenfranchised most of the white working class.

Emphasis.

While the disenfranchisement and terror against blacks was far far worse than what many lower class whites got, there was a genuine mortal fear among landed aristocrats in the South about what was going on in the North among the immigrant working class that machines like Tammany Hall relied upon.  The popularity of the Land League, in particular, must've been very unsettling to the landed aristocrats.
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2014, 09:51:43 AM »

I think the era the Jim Crow were passed was critical. The mass voter suppression didn't actually start showing itself until the late 19th century. For instance, I'm just going to take one state (perhaps the most corrupt state), South Carolina:

1870 Census: 705,606
1872 Election: 95,452 total votes

1880 Census: 995,577
1880 Election: 169,793 total votes

1890 Census: 1,151,149
1892 Election: 70,504 total votes

1900 Census: 1,340,316
1900 Election: 50,812 total votes

1910 Census: 1,515,400
1912 Election: 50,405 total votes

1920 Census: 1,683,724
1920 Election: 66,808 total votes

1930 Census: 1,738,765
1932 Election: 104,407 total votes

1940 Census: 1,899,804
1940 Election: 99,832 total votes

I made a thread about census population history, if you want to see that as well. So yeah, the laws definitely didn't go into affect until well after reconstruction. The laws not only made voting harder, but made voter registration harder. I can imagine many white people, especially poor white people, just said forget it, and they didn't vote. And black people probably were subject to violence if they tried to vote in that time.
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NHLiberal
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« Reply #9 on: July 28, 2014, 10:29:26 AM »

The same reason that West Virginia, Hawaii, and Oklahoma had below 50% turnout in 2012 yet Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Wisconsin had about 70%.
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shua
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« Reply #10 on: July 28, 2014, 11:29:13 PM »

1920 Census: 1,683,724
1920 Election: 66,808 total votes

1930 Census: 1,738,765
1932 Election: 104,407 total votes


quite a jump there.
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ElectionsGuy
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« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2014, 02:11:08 PM »

1920 Census: 1,683,724
1920 Election: 66,808 total votes

1930 Census: 1,738,765
1932 Election: 104,407 total votes


quite a jump there.

If I recall, that might've been when slave labor stopped, but even if its not that's still very low turnout.
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