Talk:List of people who received an electoral vote in the United States Electoral College

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Candidates by election year[edit]

Wouldn't it be much simpler to make a list of Presidential candidates, for each election year, and then highlight the winner? This would naturally give us a list of the unsuccessful ones. Incidentally do you cound losing candidates who later go on to win? DJ Clayworth 15:23, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Do something along the lines of the Presidents table in President of the United States, with five columns: Democratic-Republican, Federalist, Whig, Democrat, Republican... - Calmypal 15:29, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
List commenced at List of U.S. Presidential candidates.

Burr in 1800[edit]

Why does this not include Aaron Burr in the U.S. presidential election, 1800? Burr got 73 EC votes (53%) but was not elected President, either by the Electoral College or (after 35 ballots) by the House of Representatives. By the end he was certainly a candidate. --Henrygb 03:33, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Lockwood in 1884?[edit]

I'd asked over at Talk:Faithless elector about Belva Ann Lockwood who supposedly claimed to have won Indiana's electoral votes, just wanted to mention it here too. If you know more, post at Faithless elector to keep the discussion centralized, thanks. Шизомби 18:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Presidents who failed bids at reelection[edit]

"Presidents who failed bids at reelection are not included. "

In line with that construction, I am removing Van Buren in 1840; Cleveland 1888; Benjamin Harrison 1892; Taft in 1912; and Ford in 1976.


Edit Feb. 25, 2007: power went out before the edit of the page was complete. I am re-thinking this. I think a list of presidential candidates who received votes in the Electoral College by election year is a better idea. I will see if I can make time to do that Justus R 20:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Contradiction[edit]

Under 1872, it says that Charles Jenkins and David Davis earned 2 and 1 electoral votes respectively, but the percentage for both is 0.5%. This is obviously incorrect, but I don't know what is. Can someone please fix that? Reywas92Talk 18:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And Horace Greeley has three votes and 1%, also contradictory. Reywas92Talk 18:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Veeps[edit]

Why are Vice Presidents included on this list if the title of the article is "List of candidates for PRESIDENT of the United States who received at least one electoral vote"? 174.57.199.184 (talk) 01:29, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per the intro, it's supposed to be (and is) a list of every person in the United States that received an electoral vote. The page should probably be moved to something like "List of people who received an electoral vote by the United States Electoral College" or something, since some of the people here (Walter Jones, Harry Byrd) were never really candidates at all and were the result of faithless electors.--173.161.113.17 (talk) 11:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 21 December 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved per consensus. (non-admin closure) Tiggerjay (talk) 23:59, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]



List of candidates for President of the United States who received at least one electoral voteList of people who received an electoral vote in the United States Electoral College – As noted in the section above, this list includes vice-presidential candidates who never ran for President; as of the 2016 electoral college tally, it includes several people who were not running for anything at all (Colin Powell, Elizabeth Warren, Faith Spotted Eagle). bd2412 T 17:12, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Some of these were never "candidates" (as noted). Neutralitytalk 17:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support move.  ONR  (talk)  00:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As noted above, this list includes many people who were never Presidential candidates, including Vice Presidential candidates and others who have never run for either office. --haha169 (talk) 06:27, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Colors mean what? No legend.[edit]

Shouldn't there be some kind of explanation of what the various row colors in the table mean? Because there isn't. IAmNitpicking (talk) 13:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Percentage[edit]

In the early elections, electors cast two votes each. Perhaps the percentages should not be based on the total number of votes, but on the maximum number of votes a candidate could receive. For example, in the first election, 69 electors voted; the total number of votes was 138, but as one could not cast two votes for the same person, the maximum number of votes a candidate could get was 69. Hence, George Washington won with an astounding 100%, not 50%. Bever (talk) 02:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a great idea, and came here to suggest it myself. Perhaps a parenthetical would be the best way to do this. So Washington would be either read 100% (50%) or 50% (100%) depending on which number we wanted it to be more consistent with. (That is, he got 50% of the overall "votes for President," but he got 100% of the number of votes he was eligible to receive.) The reason and meaning of the parentheticals would be explained clearly in the introduction, which already notes that there was a change in 1804. And since it is widely known that Washington was elected unanimously, it seems strange (and perhaps incorrect, to some people) to show him at just 50%. ---38.104.29.62 (talk) 15:46, 17 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Table re-formatting suggestion[edit]

Tim Thomason, Lantzy - I propose re-formatting of the table as it is definitely a noteworthy topic, but the table is bit confusing. I tried to make it in a better form as given in the two proposed tables below. The only major problem remains in sorting the table. Instead of five rows of Nixon, I made a single row, but it would split upon sorting. Also, I don't think that the names should be sorted by surnames. I would prefer if a Contents box (As in List of marches composed by John Philip Sousa) and a legend box is added. Also, would it be fine if the table is separated into two parts with 1788-1800 in one part and 1804-2020 in another. I plan on working these changes in the future. It would be better if table is chronological. Would appreciate other comments? Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed table 1 (If table is chronological)
Election Candidate State Political party Electoral votes Percentage Ref.
1992  Arkansas Democratic 370 (P) 68.8%
 Texas Republican 168 (P) 31.2%
 Tennessee Democratic 370 (VP) 68.8%
 Indiana Republican 168 (VP) 31.2%



Proposed table 2 (If table is alphabetical. Candidates are in random order just for sample)
Candidate State Political party Election Electoral votes Percentage Ref.
 Texas Republican 1980 489 (VP)
1984 525 (VP)
1988 426 (P)
1992 162 (P)
 California Republican 1952 442 (VP)
1956 457 (VP)
1960 219 (P)
 New York 1968 301 (P)
 California 1972 520 (P)
 North Carolina Democratic 2004 1 (P)
252 (VP)

Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me. This is a pretty archaic looking box created when there were different sets of standards for similar tables, and not really updated with the times. I'm not sure of the necessity of images, and my thinking when I created this "List of people..." was for a pure alphabetical list to compare and contrast each individual's popularity overall, but the sorting really solves any problem with that. I also agree with splitting up the two electoral systems (1788-1800 and 1804-2020) because of the different rules and there are only about three people (George Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney) who received votes in both systems.--Tim Thomason 12:58, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Tim Thomason: Thanks for your reply. The table definitely has to be split, but my main concern remains which type of proposed table to go forward with? I favor Proposed Table 1 as it can easily be sorted, but the names of candidates would be repeated several times, while Proposed Table 2 can't be easily sorted. Also, I figured out some other issues too:
  • Should the article be divided into two different parts with people receiving voted for President and Vice President being separated from the combined list.
  • Removing images isn't a big deal, but do we need other row dealing with age of the candidate when they received electoral vote. (I guess William Jennings Bryan is youngest at 36 and Ron Paul is oldest at 81)
Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 14:55, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a proposal for what the final 1788-1800 table should look like:

1788-1800
Election Candidate State Electoral votes Percentage Ref.
1788 Virginia 69 100.0%
Massachusetts 34 49.3%
 New York 9 13.0%
Maryland 6 8.7%
 South Carolina 6 8.7%
Massachusetts 4 5.8%
 New York 3 4.3%
Connecticut 2 2.9%
Georgia 2 2.9%
Georgia 1 1.4%
Massachusetts 1 1.4%
Georgia 1 1.4%
1792 Virginia 132 100.0%
Massachusetts 77 58.3%
 New York 50 37.9%
Virginia 4 3.0%
 New York 1 0.8%
1796 Massachusetts 71 51.4%
Virginia 68 49.3%
 South Carolina 59 42.8%
 New York 30 21.7%
Massachusetts 15 10.9%
Connecticut 11 8.0%
 New York 7 5.1%
 New York 5 3.6%
North Carolina 3 2.2%
Maryland 2 1.4%
North Carolina 2 1.4%
Virginia 2 1.4%
 South Carolina 1 0.7%
1800 Virginia 73 52.9%
 New York 73 52.9%
Massachusetts 65 47.1%
 South Carolina 64 46.3%
 New York 1 0.7%

...and here's a select view of what the 1804-2020 table should look like (specifically 1804, 1992, 2016, 2020):

1804, 1992, 2016-2020
Election Candidate State Political party Electoral votes Percentage Ref.
1804 Virginia Democratic-Republican P: 162 92.0%
 South Carolina Federalist P: 14 8.0%
 New York Democratic-Republican VP: 162 92.0%
 New York Federalist VP: 14 8.0%
1992  Arkansas Democratic P: 370 68.8%
 Texas Republican P: 168 31.2%
 Tennessee Democratic VP: 370 68.8%
 Indiana Republican VP: 168 31.2%
2016  New York Republican P: 304 56.5%
 New York Democratic P: 227 42.2%
 Virginia Republican P: 3 0.6%
 Ohio Republican P: 1 0.2%
 Texas Libertarian P: 1 0.2%
 Vermont Independent P: 1 0.2%
 South Dakota Democratic P: 1 0.2%
 Indiana Republican VP: 305 56.7%
 Virginia Democratic VP: 227 42.2%
 Massachusetts Democratic VP: 2 0.4%
 Washington Democratic VP: 1 0.2%
 Maine Republican VP: 1 0.2%
 Virginia Republican VP: 1 0.2%
 Minnesota Green VP: 1 0.2%
2020  Delaware Democratic P: 306 56.9%
 Florida Republican P: 232 43.1%
 California Democratic VP: 306 56.9%
 Indiana Republican VP: 232 43.1%

...after spending the better part of a day on these eight elections (out of 59), I think I can safely agree that Vice Presidential Electoral votes (1804-2020) should probably be split off into a third (or 2.5) section. Something like "-1788-1800-" and "-1804-2020- --Presidential-- --Vice Presidential--", if you catch my drift. There is no real utility in counting vice presidential electoral votes alongside presidential ones, since the 12th Amendment pretty much redefined two separate classes of electoral votes.

These were all based on Proposed Table 1. Proposed Table 2, on the other hand, is more faithful to the "list of people" and it helps to see Nixon and Bush and other VP's turned Presidents. Surprising people with FDR's candidacy as a Vice President many years ago or the faithless elector vote for James Polk as VP. I'm siding with Table 1, mainly on the presumption that the VPs should be split off into a third table (and, thus, there's no need to list everyone alphabetically).--Tim Thomason 17:33, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Tim Thomason: I definitely agree with you and think that after making these changes, we can hopefully look forward with a FLC. I would definitely update all the entries in the table within 1-2 weeks. I tried making similar changes in List of United States Democratic Party presidential candidates and it is underway. Thanks! Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]