County Unit System

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The County Unit System was a voting system used by the U.S. state of Georgia to determine a victor in statewide primary elections from 1917 until 1962. [1]

U.S. state constituent political entity of the United States

In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are currently 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory and shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders. Four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names.

Georgia (U.S. state) State of the United States of America

Georgia is a state in the Southeastern United States. It began as a British colony in 1733, the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies to be established. Named after King George II of Great Britain, the Province of Georgia covered the area from South Carolina south to Spanish Florida and west to French Louisiana at the Mississippi River. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. In 1802–1804, western Georgia was split to the Mississippi Territory, which later split to form Alabama with part of former West Florida in 1819. Georgia declared its secession from the Union on January 19, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. Atlanta, the state's capital and most populous city, has been named a global city. Atlanta's metropolitan area contains about 55% of the population of the entire state.

Contents

History

Though the County Unit System had informally been used since 1898, it was formally enacted by the Neill Primary Act of 1917. The system was ostensibly designed to function similarly to the Electoral College, but in practice the large ratio of unit votes for small, rural counties to unit votes for more populous urban areas provided outsized political influence to the smaller counties. [2] [3]

For most of the period this system was in effect, the Democratic Party was the single dominant party in state politics. Democratic nominees frequently ran unopposed or with only token opposition in general elections, so the Democratic primary election usually determined the eventual officeholder. [4]

Democratic Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.

Organization

Under the County Unit System, the 159 counties in Georgia were divided by population into three categories. The largest eight counties were classified as "Urban," the next-largest 30 counties were classified as "Town," and the remaining 121 counties were classified as "Rural." Urban counties were given 6 unit votes, Town counties were given 4 unit votes, and Rural counties were given 2 unit votes, for a total of 410 available unit votes. Each county's unit votes were awarded on a winner-take-all basis. [2] [3]

First-past-the-post voting voting system in which voters select one candidate, and the candidate who receives more votes than any other candidate wins

A first-past-the-post electoral system is one in which voters indicate on a ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins. This is sometimes described as winner takes all. First-past-the-post voting is a plurality voting method. FPTP is a common, but not universal, feature of electoral systems with single-member electoral divisions, and is practiced in close to one third of countries. Notable examples include Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as most of their current or former colonies and protectorates.

Candidates were required to obtain a majority of unit votes (not necessarily a majority of the popular vote), or 206 total unit votes, to win the election. If no candidate received a majority in the initial primary, a runoff election was held between the top two candidates to determine a winner. [4]

A majority is the greater part, or more than half, of the total. It is a subset of a set consisting of more than half of the set's elements.

Controversy

The County Unit System generated great controversy due to the fact that it gave the votes of counties with smaller populations a significantly greater weight than counties with larger populations. For at least the final two decades the system was in use, a majority of statewide unit votes were controlled by counties that, collectively, had less than one-third of the state's total population. [4] [5] Because of this, statewide candidates for office could (and frequently did) win the primary by winning the county unit vote while losing the overall popular vote, sometimes by large margins. This also gave rise to kingmakers such as Roy V. Harris, who were known for their ability to deliver the unit votes of many rural counties. [3] [6]

A kingmaker is a person or group that has great influence on a royal or political succession, without themselves being a viable candidate. Kingmakers may use political, monetary, religious, and military means to influence the succession. Originally, the term applied to the activities of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick—"Warwick the Kingmaker"—during the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487) in England.

One of the most controversial elections of the County Unit System era was the 1946 Democratic gubernatorial primary. By winning a large number of rural counties, Eugene Talmadge garnered a nearly 60% majority of the statewide county unit votes and won the primary, even though he lost the popular vote by 16,144 votes to James V. Carmichael, who himself only won a plurality, not a majority, of the popular vote. [1] [7]

1946 Georgia Democratic Gubernatorial Primary
(County Unit Votes in parentheses) [7]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic James V. Carmichael313,389
(146)		45.30
(35.61)
Democratic Eugene Talmadge297,245
(242)		42.96
(59.02)
Democratic Eurith Rivers69,489
(22)		10.04
(5.37)
Democratic Hoke Smith O'Kelley11,758
(0)		1.70
(0)

Several lawsuits were filed in the 1940s and 1950s challenging the constitutionality of the system. These lawsuits were rejected by the Supreme Court on the grounds that apportionment issues should be handled by individual states. [4] In 1962, however, the Supreme Court reversed its opinion, ruling in the Tennessee case of Baker v. Carr that redistricting issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases. [8]

Following the 1962 Baker v. Carr decision, James Sanders, a voter in Fulton County, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia which challenged the legality of the County Unit System. James H. Gray, the chairman of the State Executive Committee of the Democratic Party, was one of the defendants named in the suit. Judge Griffin Bell ruled in Sanders' favor, issuing an injunction against using the system just months before the 1962 gubernatorial primary. [4]

Gray appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which on March 8, 1963, rendered a decision by a vote of 8–1 declaring the County Unit System unconstitutional in its current form. In the majority opinion, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "The concept of political equality...can mean only one thing—one person, one vote." The Gray v. Sanders case was the first One Person, One Vote decision handed down by the Supreme Court. [9]

Aftermath

Due to the court's injunction of the County Unit System in 1962, that year's Democratic gubernatorial primary was the first to be decided by popular vote since 1908. [10] It was won by Carl Sanders of Augusta, who would go on to win unopposed in the general election in November. Sanders was the first person from an urban county (Richmond) to be elected governor since the 1920s. [11]

1962 Georgia Democratic Gubernatorial Primary [12]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic Carl E. Sanders494,97858.07
Democratic Marvin Griffin 332,74639.04
Democratic Grace Wilkey Thomas12,5791.48
Democratic Hoke Smith O'Kelley8,7281.02
Democratic Cecil L. Langham3,3190.39

Following the 1963 Gray v. Sanders decision, the Georgia Legislature had the option to redesign the County Unit System to meet the new "One Person, One Vote" standard. The legislature chose, instead, to continue electing statewide offices by popular vote, which continues to the present day. The newly elected Governor Sanders also spearheaded a massive reapportionment of Georgia's General Assembly and 10 U.S. Congressional districts, providing more proportional representation to the state's urban areas. [11]

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References

  1. 1 2 "County Unit System". Georgia County Clerks Association. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  2. 1 2 "Eugene Talmadge". The Jim Crow Encyclopedia. The African American Experience. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 "County Unit System, eh?". Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. October 6, 2011. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Buchanan, Scott (April 15, 2005). "County Unit System". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  5. ↑ Cook, Earl Pope (1946). "Earl P. Cook Collection of County Unit System Materials". Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  6. ↑ Huff, Christopher Allen (June 28, 2007). "Roy V. Harris". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  7. 1 2 State of Georgia. "Consolidated Vote, State Democratic Primary, July 17, 1946". Georgia's Official Register, 1945-1950 (PDF). p. 486. Retrieved August 17, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Baker v. Carr decision". Findlaw. March 26, 1962. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  9. ↑ "Gray v. Sanders decision". FindLaw. March 8, 1963. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  10. ↑ J. Harmon Smith. "History of Georgia's County Unit System". Written at Atlanta, Georgia. In Virginia W. Atwell. Georgia's Official Register, 1961-1962 (PDF). Hapeville, Georgia: Longino & Porter. pp. 943–944. Retrieved August 17, 2013.
  11. 1 2 Cook, James F. (September 12, 2002). "Carl Sanders". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  12. ↑ State of Georgia. "Consolidated Vote, State Democratic Primary, Held September 12, 1962". Written at Atlanta, Georgia. In Virginia W. Atwell. Georgia's Official Register, 1961-1962 (PDF). Hapeville, Georgia: Longino & Porter. p. 1436. Retrieved August 17, 2013.
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