Before Bush v. Gore: Hawai'i 1960
Considering the potential for post-election voting rights and voting count challenges to drag on, I am wondering whether we will actually hear a concession speech on Tuesday night (or early Wednesday morning)? Even if we do, it has the potential to be the least sincere concession speech of all time, unless the candidate declares an immediate end to voting challenges.
There was a remarkably interesting historical article [registration required, but it gets you access to the entire line of Stephens Media Group local papers] in this morning's usually insipid Hawaii Tribune-Herald, about the last election in which a VP candidate campaigned in the state [emphasis added].
Debacle of 1960 vote is recalled
By HUNTER BISHOP, Tribune-Herald staff writer
Elections officials are hoping to avoid anything resembling the 1960 presidential election in Hawaii, the first in the state's history. Sen. John F. Kennedy, who eked out an election night victory in Hawaii by 92 votes, saw that victory overturned within days following an"audit" of precinct tally sheets by Republican Lt. Gov. James Kealoha. The audit led to a prolonged series of recounts before Kennedy eventually won the state's three electoral votes -- even after Gov. William Quinn had certified the election result in favor of Vice President Richard Nixon. Hawaii's three votes were very nearly crucial to the outcome of the presidential race, which at the time was the most closely contested in the 20th century.
By Nov. 17, Nixon emerged from Hawaii's audit -- not a recount --with a 141-vote lead out of more than 184,000 ballots. Democrats demanded a recount and filed a lawsuit charging irregularities, including uncounted ballots and, in districts such as the Manoa Valley on Oahu, more votes were counted than cast. Circuit Judge Ronald Jamieson ordered a recount in 37 of 240 precincts, a total of more than 32,000 ballots.
As the laborious recount dragged into mid-December, Republicans were arguing as they did in Florida in 2000 that the electors needed to be certified six days before the Electoral College meets to cast their ballots for president. (Supreme Court Justice [Stephens; see comments] cited the Hawaii case in his dissent in the Gore v. Bush decision four years ago, which resulted in the election of George W. Bush.) Judge Jamieson was determined to find the actual winner in Hawaii, however, and ordered recounts in seven more precincts after Nixon's lead fell to 61 with 34 precincts recounted. By Dec. 16, with four more precincts recounted, Kennedy pulled ahead of Nixon by 21 votes. Kennedy's lead grew to 57 after 20 more precincts were recounted.
Meanwhile, Republican Gov. John Quinn had already certified Nixon the winner and appointed Republicans to cast their ballots in the Electoral College. When Kennedy's lead grew to 96 after recounts in 95 precincts, Jamieson ordered recounts in all 240 precincts on Dec. 19, the day before the Electoral College convened. Gov. Quinn allowed both the Republicans and Democrats to cast electoral votes for their candidates at Iolani Palace on Dec. 20. If Kennedy eventually won the full recount, only Congress would be able overturn Quinn's certification of the GOP electors because the deadline had passed.
After the total recount, on Dec. 27 Judge Jamieson declared that Kennedy had won the election in Hawaii by 115 votes. The Kennedy win was made a part of the official record and Hawaii Sen. Oren Long, and then-Rep. Daniel Inouye, argued on the floor of Congress to certify the Massachusetts senator the winner in Hawaii.
On Jan. 6, 1961, the roll call of electors in Congress was uneventful until it came to Hawaii's turn. The conflicting sets of electors became a problem that was tossed to Nixon, who presided over the Senate in his role as vice president. Sen. Long and Rep. Inouye made it clear they were prepared to spark a heated floor fight in Congress to defend the selection of Kennedy's electors, but Hawaii's Republican Sen. Hiram Fong did not object. Neither did Gov. Quinn, who had already sent an affidavit to Congress on Jan. 4, 1961, asking for the certification of Hawaii's democratic electors based on the final recount.
By then, Kennedy had an insurmountable Electoral College lead and Hawaii's three votes (today Hawaii has four) wouldn't have affected the outcome. After Kennedy eked out razor-thin, controversial victories in Illinois and Texas, the election was his. But if those states hadn't gone Nixon's way [Ed. - does he mean Kennedy's way?], or if Nixon's campaign had contested the results, Hawaii's controversial vote could have tipped the balance nationwide -- one way or another.
In the end, Nixon wisely avoided the battle over electors, choosing to accept Gov. Quinn's Jan. 4 certification which made Kennedy the winner despite failing to meet the Electoral College deadline. The ill-fated young senator was inaugurated in Washington, D.C., as the nation's 35th president on Jan. 20, 1961.
The sportsmanlike conduct of the Republican governor and senator, not to mention Nixon himself, are quite striking in contrast to the deeply partisan nature of voting administration as we know it today. [Rick Shenkman pointed me to this David Greenberg article which details some of the other states in which Nixon's campaign was much more aggressive in challenging vote counts and electors. It wasn't all sweetness and light, to be sure, but a modicum of dignity was preserved.]
There's really good reason to hope that it doesn't come down to Hawai'i: our election system is in some flux and the technology and administrative processes are still shaky. If Hawai'i really is close, the challenges here will be at least as difficult to resolve as anywhere else. And we have local precedent which is at odds with the current national precedent (I know, Bush v. Gore wasn't supposed to be a precedent for anything....) which will make the legal situation here even more complicated than elsewhere.