States rights Democrats and national Democrats faced off in the primary for Presidential Elector on 5/3/1960. The race was very close. One states rights Democrat won the nomination outright (Bruce Henderson), and the other ten slots went to a runoff on 5/31/1960; at that time, the remaining 10 seats were split 5-5 in a tight race. As a result, the Democratic slate of Electors for 1960 would include 6 states rights Electors and 5 national Democratic Electors.
Names of the Electors:
States Rights Electors: former Gov. Frank M. Dixon (324050 votes), J. Bruce Henderson (323018 votes), Edmund Blair (322593 votes), C.E. Hornsby Jr. (322124 votes), W.W. Malone (322084 votes), and Frank Mizell (320957 votes).
National Democratic Electors: C.G. Allen (318303 votes), C.L. Beard (318266 votes), J.E. Brantley (317226 votes), Dave Archer (317171 votes), and Karl Harrison (316934 votes).
In this election, the names of the candidates for President and Vice President did not appear on the ballot (a copy of the ballot is shown in Neal Peirce's The People's President, pp. 348-349).
At that time, Alabama was still using the "General Ticket" method of selection of the Electors, in which voters were directed to vote for u
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States rights Democrats and national Democrats faced off in the primary for Presidential Elector on 5/3/1960. The race was very close. One states rights Democrat won the nomination outright (Bruce Henderson), and the other ten slots went to a runoff on 5/31/1960; at that time, the remaining 10 seats were split 5-5 in a tight race. As a result, the Democratic slate of Electors for 1960 would include 6 states rights Electors and 5 national Democratic Electors.
Names of the Electors:
States Rights Electors: former Gov. Frank M. Dixon (324050 votes), J. Bruce Henderson (323018 votes), Edmund Blair (322593 votes), C.E. Hornsby Jr. (322124 votes), W.W. Malone (322084 votes), and Frank Mizell (320957 votes).
National Democratic Electors: C.G. Allen (318303 votes), C.L. Beard (318266 votes), J.E. Brantley (317226 votes), Dave Archer (317171 votes), and Karl Harrison (316934 votes).
In this election, the names of the candidates for President and Vice President did not appear on the ballot (a copy of the ballot is shown in Neal Peirce's The People's President, pp. 348-349).
At that time, Alabama was still using the "General Ticket" method of selection of the Electors, in which voters were directed to vote for up to 11 people to cast the electoral votes. [The current method, called the "short ballot," directs the voter to cast a single vote for a slate of Electors rather than voting individually for Electors.]
The Democratic slate of Electors was elected. The six anti-Kennedy Electors placed first, followed by the five Kennedy Electors, then the Nixon Electors, then the third party Electors. The highest states right Elector received 324,050 votes, and the highest national Democratic Elector received 318,303 votes. It is thus clear that just under 6,000 Democrats specifically voted for the states rights Electors only.
Psephologists have suggested various means of reporting the result. There are two general options:
1. Credit Kennedy with the entire Democratic vote. Some sources give Kennedy the 324,050 vote, although in fact his highest Elector only received 318,303 votes. Some accounts ignore the popular vote of the anti-Kennedy Electors and apply the entire Democratic vote to Kennedy, while others offer the states rights Electors as a separate number. As a result, this option generally doubles the Democratic presidential vote in 1960 in Alabama.
2. Other sources divide the Democratic vote into separate numbers for the anti-Kennedy Electors (6/11) and the Kennedy Electors (5/11). The result: states rights Electors 176,755 to national Democratic Electors 147,295. The advantage of this option is that it avoids duplication of the Democratic vote and allows for the counting of the states rights Electors. Such an option has the obvious drawback that it suggests that a separate slate of Electors was on the ballot. A more serious drawback is that the Nixon Electors end up with more votes than the divided Democratic vote. A third consideration is that such a division lowers Kennedy's nationwide total to a point less than Nixon's nationwide total. However, for the determination of delegates to the 1964 Democratic National Convention, this method was used to reduce Alabama's number of delegates.
When the Presidential Electors met to cast the electoral vote, the state's rights Democratic Electors voted for Sen. Harry F. Byrd for President, while the "national" Democratic Electors voted for John F. Kennedy.
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318,303 (55.82%)