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NC US Senate

RACE DETAILS

Parents

> United States > North Carolina > Senate Class II

Office

Senate

Type

General Election

Filing Deadline

April 10, 1930 - 12:00pm

Polls Open

November 04, 1930 - 06:00am

Polls Close

November 04, 1930 - 08:00pm

Term Start

March 04, 1931 - 11:00am

Term End

January 03, 1937 - 11:00am

Contributor

Chronicler

Last Modified

Chronicler March 16, 2013 06:58pm

Data Sources

North Carolina Manual 1931; Wake County archives for write-ins (Furnifold M. Simmons (D*) - 4 and Thomas Bost - 1).

Description

Although Bailey won this race rather handily, in the months following the election, more and more instances of innovative vote counting techniques were reported throughout the State. Pritchard hired an attorney to review all the allegations, and he decided to contest the election. The 'regular' Republicans had control of the Senate, but the independent Republicans from the Plains states sometimes supported the Democrats and held the balance of power. As a result, the regular Republicans encouraged Pritchard to pursue the challenge. A special committee investigating the race ordered that all ballots be collected so it could perform a recount. This event eventually ended the challenge, since Bailey won by such a wide margin that even the Republicans realized that they would have to invalidate about one-third of all votes cast in order to win the race.