In most of these years I probably would not have bothered voting. But for fun, I selected the best candidate each year when a palatable one was available, and wrote in a contemporary public figure in bad years.
1900: Eugene Debs
1904: Eugene Debs
1908: Eugene Debs
1912: Eugene Debs
1916: Allan Benson
1920: Eugene Debs
1924: Robert LaFollette
1928: Norman Thomas
1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt
1936: Norman Thomas
1940: Norman Thomas
1944: Norman Thomas
1948: Henry Wallace
1952: Vincent Hallinan
1956: Darlington Hoopes
1960: (Write in: A. Philip Randolph)
1964: (Write in: Malcolm X)
1968: (Write in: Eugene McCarthy)
1972: George McGovern
1976: Eugene McCarthy
1980: (Write in: Michael Harrington)
1984: (Write in: Jesse Jackson)
1988: (Write in: Jesse Jackson)
1992: (Write in: Noam Chomsky)
1996: Ralph Nader
2000: Ralph Nader
2004: (Write in: Noam Chomsky)
2008: (Write in: Noam Chomsky)
2012: (Write in: Noam Chomsky)
2016: (Write in: Bernie Sanders)
EDIT: For fun, here is 1840-1896
1840: James G. Birney (Liberty)
1844: James G. Birney (Liberty)
1848: Martin Van Buren (Free Soil)
1852: John P. Hale (Free Soil)
1856: John C. Fremont (Republican)
1860: Abraham Lincoln (Republican)
1864: Abraham Lincoln (Republican)
1868: Ulysses S. Grant (Republican)
1872: Ulysses S. Grant (Republican)
1876: Peter Cooper (Greenback)
1880: James Weaver (Greenback)
1884: Benjamin Butler (Greenback)
1888: Alson Streeter (Union Labor)
1892: James Weaver (Populist)
1896: Charles H. Matchett (Socialist Labor)
Malcolm X, the one "advocated for black supremacy,
the separation of black and white Americans, and
rejected the notion of the civil rights movement for its emphasis on racial integration."? That Malcolm X?
And such lovely racist gems as:
"It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”
"Did the Zionists have the legal or moral right to invade Arab Palestine, uproot its Arab citizens from their homes and seize all Arab property for themselves just based on the "religious" claim that their forefathers lived there thousands of years ago? Only a thousand years ago the Moors lived in Spain. Would this give the Moors of today the legal and moral right to invade the Iberian Peninsula, drive out its Spanish citizens, and then set up a new Moroccan nation … where Spain used to be, as the European zionists have done to our Arab brothers and sisters in Palestine?..."
"You trust them (white Americans), and I don't. You studied what he wanted you to learn about him in schools. I studied him in the streets and in prison, where you see the truth."
"It's impossible for a white person to believe in capitalism and not believe in racism. You can't have capitalism without racism."
