While Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame are fading away, it has become apparent that his place in Ohio voting history is not entirely unique.

In Harrison County, in 1824, in the voting for State Representative, the official records list one vote for a candidate listed in the official records as simply “Tom the Tinker.”

That’s it.  No last name.  No other information.  Apparently the linking of a first name with a job title is something that has a long history in Ohio politics.  Tom the Tinker will forever be enshrined in A New Nation Votes as having received one vote for State Representative in Harrison County, Ohio in 1824.

As we have gone through the elections, we couldn’t help noticing that there are many cruel and unusual names. This week I present to you John C. Death. It’s a little morbid but of course all of the people of the Early Republic are dead. I find myself wondering if John C. Death was like the boy in the 1999 movie Sixth Sense who’s character could have been named I. C. Deadpeople.

I.C. Deadpeople?

John C. Death ran to for the office of State Representative of Ohio from the counties of Clinton and Warren.  He was a vetern of the War of 1812.  And his cruel father was Hugh Death.

Plummer Ijams became part of our funny names roll due to his run for the Maryland House of Delegates.  There are, of course, some variations in the spelling of his surname and others have it as “Iiams”.  Fortunately for him, indoor plumbing was uncommon. He ran for the House in 1819 and 1820. He was a notable Republican from Frederick County and he was elected in 1819 but plunged by the Federalists in 1820. Apparently, he was against raising the Governor’s salary and against the nomination of a replacement for U.S. Senator Hanson, who died in office.

To see the tributes to Phil Lampi and his research on Jeff Pasley’s blog, Publick Occurrences, please click here

In a time of broad political generalizations based on polls that only started to be taken seriously about 50 years, I would like to make one based on fact. The geographic politics of Delaware have never changed. It is the first state, and the most perfect for a case study in voting returns. To start, Delaware has always had three counties; New Castle to the north, Sussex in the south and Kent somewhere in the middle. The political leanings of the these counties have always been set into the same extremes. New Castle and Sussex have always been firmly set into opposing parties and Kent has always swung somewhere in the middle.

The only thing that has changed is the method of electing Federal officials such as the U.S senators and President. Modern U.S. Senator and Presidential electors are chosen state wide at large. Not so in 1800. Back then, the U.S. Senator and Presidential electors were chosen by the General Assembly.

Ok, Let’s get to the numbers to show the true impact of this change.

In 1800, popular vote for President can only be determined through the votes for the legislature. Kent County happen to swing Federalist that year by a margin of 78 votes and accordingly the state designated all of their electoral votes for John Adams. If the modern rules applied and John Adams would also have won the popular vote in Delaware.

New Castle
- 916 Federalist
- 1244 Republican
Kent
-833 Federalist
-727 Republican

Sussex
- 950 Federalist
- 377 Republican

However, if we applied the historic rules to our modern elections, Delaware would be wearing a different color. If you total these numbers up the county numbers below the state will go Democrat but 2 out of 3 counties had Republican majorities. If the legislature were still electing the Presidential electors and U.S. Senators, then Bush would have won the state and Joe Biden would not be a US Senator.

2000 Presidential Popular Vote

New Castle County —
127798 Democratic
78809 Republican

Kent County —
22676 Democratic
24071 Republican

Sussex County —
29827 Democratic
34467 Republican

John Randolph was a major early factor in the House of Representatives.  He served 11 full terms in the House (in four different districts thanks to the growth of Virginia and re-districting every decade).  He also served two partial terms.

His first partial term he resigned, because he had been elected to the U.S. Senate to fill out the last year and a half of a term.  At the conclusion of that term he was replaced by John Tyler - the man who would later become the 10th President of the United States.

After serving another term in the house, he did not seek re-election and ended up being appointed the Minister to Russia.  He served six months in that position.  At that point he was then replaced by James Buchanaan - the man who would later become the 15th President of the United States.

At this point, it looks like a good idea to step in for Randolph.  Or so you would think.

When Randolph had declined to run for re-election to Congress in 1829, he was replaced in the House by Thomas T. Bouldin.  Bouldin served two terms and then was beaten for re-election, by none other than John Randolph, who decided he wanted his old seat back.

Randolph then went to his 13th term in the House, but only lasted two months before dying on May 24, 1833 (before Congress even went into session).  A special election was then held to replace him and he was followed by none other than Thomas T. Bouldin.

On February 11, 1834, Bouldin was giving a eulogy for his predecessor on the House floor.  He died in mid-sentence.

In 1818, Joseph Kerr was elected as one of three members of Ross County to the Ohio House of Representatives. He did not, however, arrive for the start of the session on 7 December, because he was under a capias ad satisfaciendum, which in normal English, means he owed someone money and was in debtor’s prison.

But, on December 15, the House decided they had had enough of waiting around for Kerr to show up, noting “this house are of opinion, that it is the constitutional right of the people to have a fall (sic) expression in this house, and that it is not only the constitutional right of this house, but an imperious duty, to compel the attendance of all its members, therefore. Resolved. That the speaker of this house, be authorized, empowered and directed, to issue his warrant, under his hand, directing the sergeant at arms to cause to be brought to this house the said Joseph Kerr, in order to his attendance on his duties as member of this general assembly.”

Fortunately for legal scholars (and unfortunately for those who love humor), the legislature voted against the measure by a total of 55 to 30.

The folks at the University of Richmond have come up with this awesome interactive mapping service for elections from 1840 - present.  They don’t have the early stuff, yet.  But we are working on that

Voting America

While doing the data entry one of our project assistants, David Doughan, came across a set of election returns for Henry Clay for a previously unknown special election  for congress in 1815. There was no mention of this special election in any of the secondary sources (Bio. Directory of U.S. Congress, Dubin, etc. ).  Phil Lampi looked for further evidence in the contemporary newspapers and found out that there was indeed a special election for Congress in 1815.  Here’s what happened. While Henry Clay was abroad settling the treaty to end the War of 1812, he ran for the 14th congress and won.  (He had resigned from the 13th congress before taking the post).  However, he was not back State-side before start of the 14th congress and the Governor declared his seat vacant.  Clay ran in this special election to fill his own seat and was unopposed.  But there was no mention of this special election in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress.  We contacted them and the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives verified it by located at the the writ of election issued by the governor in 1815 Kentucky State Archives .  You can now see the revised version of Clay biography online.  We’re re-writing history!

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000482

I found this interesting document about the reasoning behind the creation of the electoral college citing distance and limited communication technology as part of it.  All I know is it would pretty hard to get rid of.  For better or worse, we have been stuck with it since the beginning.

eleccoll.pdf