Talk:1788–89 United States presidential election

Popular vote figures

I request a complete overhaul of this article in terms of its numbers. I've already changed the popular vote figures in Maryland to reflect just the highest elector, so Maryland's votes aren't counted twice due to having two at-large votes for each shore. There are also problems with other states, such as Virginia, having no ballots listed for Anti-Federalist, even though the state gave 3 electoral votes to the Anti-Federalist candidate.

My biggest problem, and why I'm discussing this on the talk page, is the total popular vote numbers listed in the article. The article lists 39,624 votes for Federalists and 4,158 for Anti-Federalists, making a total of 43,782 for Washington, which is proudly displayed in the infobox. Looking through the history, the number appears to come from a now dead user linking to OurCampaigns. This source was later replaced by @ThadeusOfNazereth:, citing Dubin's United States Presidential Elections, 1788-1860: The Official Results by County and State, a book I happen to own.

The funny thing about these numbers is that they don't appear on pages 1-3, which are cited, nor can I find them on any of the earlier pages. In fact, the numbers listed on this page don't add up to those in the book either. Most of the candidates in that book are not given their party, and the ones that are listed with a party add up to only around 2,000 for the Anti-Federalists and certainly not nearly 40,000 for the Federalists. More funny the numbers don't even match the original OurCampaigns source, they're thousands off from that one too. The only way I could see someone getting close to 40,000 would be by adding up all the candidates, including electors who weren't the highest result for their faction. As far as I can tell, these numbers are completely made up.

Because of this, I request to do a complete overhaul of this article, vaporizing the national vote numbers, and building the total from the ground up with the numbers from A New Nation Votes, a source that, in my opinion, is better for these early election articles. Wowzers122 (talk) 23:43, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

As a general rule, I don't defend edits that I don't have a specific recollection of making, and this one is no exception. I can confirm that those numbers don't appear in the book (I am looking at my copy as I write this comment) so I'm not sure where I got them from. I'd be happy to see the article updated and agree that ANNV is a generally more accurate source. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 00:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Date

Did this election actually take place from December 1788 to January 1789? All the sub articles for participating states list the date as being January 7, 1789, and the date being Dec 1788-Jan 1789 is only mentioned in passing. Talthiel (talk) 17:47, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

@Talthiel: New Hampshire voters started voting for electors on December 15 1788 (Note 24), on a general ticket. As no elector candidate received the "requisite number for a choice", the choice of electors went to the legislature (Note 1). On January 7 1789, the legislature chose the 5 best-performing elector candidates out of 10 (Note 6). Wowzers122 (talk) 15:06, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

well it says on the NH page for this election that it was held on 1789, so then there ought to be a footnote there too? Talthiel (talk) 15:25, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll add it to the page. Wowzers122 (talk)