Final Accounting

The official totals on the Presidential election of 1924 have at last been completed and made known. There are two ways of looking at them--as the results of a political election, as the results of a popular election:

The "political election": Here are the total popular votes for President by parties in the last four elections: YEAR REPUBLICAN* DEMOCRATIC/- PROGRESSIVE** 1924 . . 15,718,789 8,378,962 4,822,319 1920 . . 16,152,200 9,147,353 1916 . . 8,538,221 9,129,606 1912 . . 3,483,922 6,286,214 4,126,020

Here is the same table, computed in percentages of the total vote : YEAR REPUBLICAN DEMOCRATIC PROGRESSIVE 1924 54.4% 29.0% 16.6% 1920 61.1% 34.9% 1916 46.1% 49.3% 1912 25.1% 43.2%, 29.6% Here is the table of the electoral votes showing the efficient result of the popular votes represented above : YEAR REPUBLICAN DEMOCRATIC PROGRESSIVE 1924 ..... 389 129 13 1920 ..... 404 127 1916 ..... 254 277 1912 ..... 8 435 88 Some minor but noteworthy matters in regard to the 1924 returns :

P:Although LaFoIlette had 696,299 more votes than Roosevelt had in 1912, he secured only one state (Wisconsin) with 13 electoral votes, as compared to Roosevelt's six states with 88 electoral votes. The reasons: 1) due to women's suffrage, the total vote was far greater in 1924; 2) LaFollette's following was very scattered.

P:LaFollette's poll in New York (474,905) where he ran third, was greater than his poll in Wisconsin (453,678) where he ran first.

P:Coolidge's largest plurality (922,289) was in Pennsylvania. His smallest plurality (1,674) was in Nevada.

P:Davis' largest plurality (350,185) was in Texas. His smallest plurality (27,473) was in Tennessee.

The "popular election": Here arc the numbers of voters who took part in the last four presidential elections and the percentages which they constituted of total eligible voters :

YEAR VOTERS PERCENTAGE OF POSSIBLE VOTERS 1924 28,920,070* 50% 1920 26,711,183 49% 1916 18,486,849 65% 1912 15,031,169 62% Although there was an increase of the total vote in 1924, there was a decrease of the number of voters in many of the Southern states and also in Delaware, Maryland, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Washington. The great get-out-the-vote campaign staged last Fall therefore did little more than stem the almost continuous decrease in the percentage of actual voters which has taken place steadily since 1864 when about 85% of those eligible voted.

*Republican presidential candidates: Coolidge (1924), Harding (1920), Hughes (1916), Taft (1912). /-Democratic presidential candidates: Davis (1924), Cox (1920), Wilson (1916, 1912). **Progressive candidates: LaFoIlette (1924), Roosevelt (1912). That each of these candidates ran under the name "Progressive" and that each was a third party aspirant was about all they had in common. The Roosevelt Progressives disintegrated after 1912, and LaFoIlette built up a new organization in 1924. *The final totals in 1924 will be slightly greater--very slightly--when the votes for other candidates are added to the totals for the three leaders. This makes the actual percentage of voters to eligible voters some-what uncertain. All percentages of this kind are approximate, however, because the number of eligible voters cannot be precisely set.