Talk:1800 United States presidential election

Table format

the new table format makes the article too wide. it makes me have to scroll to the right to see the rest. Kingturtle 05:25 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

I just cut it to width=70%, did that help? -- Zoe

yes, it fits now. i need to set aside some time and learn how to edit tables and images. Kingturtle 05:28 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

Most of my learning has been trial and error. Tables are a major pain. -- Zoe

Delaware a draw?

How could Delaware's vote in the contingent election in the House be a draw if the state only has one Representative? I thought that each state in the House voting got one vote, determined by a majority vote of its House delegation. Since Delaware's House representation was one guy .... am I missing something here? --Jfruh 14:55, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

The representative from Delaware, James Asheton Bayard, cast a blank ballot. The vote being 0 - 0, it was a draw.

— DLJessup 16:17, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm ... wouldn't "abstained" be a better description? --Jfruh 03:26, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

There are three states for a state's vote: a vote for Jefferson, a vote for Burr, or a vote for neither. We should be using the same term for a vote for neither, whether the individual representatives vote 0 - 0 or 10 - 10. — DLJessup 16:37, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi there -- I know it's been months since we've had this discussion, but I've been thinking about it and calling an abstention a 0-0 tie still seems overschematic and counterintuitive to me. I suppose there are three states for a state's vote as you discussed in terms of the final result, but there is more than one set of circumstances that could result in a vote for neither candidate: either the delegation is deadlocked, or the delegation decides not to cast a vote at all. I think that in terms of the political machinations of real life (which is of course what we're talking about here), people would have thought about a state not casting a vote because its delegation was evenly split, and a single delegate refusing to cast a vote, very differently; the political fallout for those politicians would have been very different as well. And I just don't think most people think of a single person refusing to make a choice as a "0-0 draw."

What do you think of the following as a revised version of the table in question? It maintains the three-state model for each delegation's vote, but also makes it clearer what happened, and gets rid of the "0-0 draw" verbiage.

	1st – 35th ballots	36th ballot
Georgia	Jefferson	Jefferson
Kentucky	Jefferson	Jefferson
New Jersey	Jefferson	Jefferson
New York	Jefferson	Jefferson
North Carolina	Jefferson	Jefferson
Pennsylvania	Jefferson	Jefferson
Tennessee	Jefferson	Jefferson
Virginia	Jefferson	Jefferson
Maryland	No vote cast (a)	Jefferson
Vermont	No vote cast (a)	Jefferson
Delaware	Burr	No vote cast (b)
South Carolina	Burr	No vote cast (a)
Connecticut	Burr	Burr
Massachusetts	Burr	Burr
New Hampshire	Burr	Burr
Rhode Island	Burr	Burr

• ^(a) These state House delegations were evenly split on the ballots indicated, and thus did not cast a vote.
• ^(b) On the 36th ballot, Delaware's single representative cast a blank ballot paper.

--Jfruh 14:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

As you can see, I've added in the results for each state that I got from the Annals of Congress. I've also replaced the word "draw" with "no result". I hope that the results address your concerns.

— DLJessup (talk) 01:46, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

This looks perfect! Thanks for doing this research, and for all the good work you do on Presidential election pages. --Jfruh 14:47, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

HELP!

Ok, really, I need help. I can't find it anywhere else. Would anyone happen to know how many times the house of reps had to revote for the 1800 election?