Max's election maps and assorted others

[Wendell]

Another American one, another quick one.

The people who read this thread will probably know that most US states have governors who are elected to four-year terms, either coinciding with presidential terms, coinciding with midterm congressional elections (this one is most common), or in a few cases elected in odd-numbered years. The only exceptions are Vermont and New Hampshire, whose governors serve two-year terms and are up for election alongside all congressional elections.

It may surprise some of you to learn that the latter used to be far more common - and this is one of those constitutional changes that have happened more recently than you'd expect from the US. Until the 1950s, most states in the Upper Midwest, Great Plains, New England, as well as some in the South and Mountain West, elected their governors every two years. This included a few large, politically significant states like Texas and Ohio, but most of the "two-year states" were on the smaller side. Most of them made the switch between about 1950 and 1980, but a couple of stragglers held out - Arkansas changed to four-year terms in 1986, and Rhode Island in 1994.

There was also a significant bloc of states in the Mid-Atlantic region that previously had three-year terms. Most of these had changed to four years by the mid-19th century, but New Jersey held out until 1943 - this is why it still holds all its state-level elections in odd-numbered years. And of course, New England used to pride itself on holding annual elections, but that doesn't show on this map because they all switched to two-year terms before then moving to four-year ones (in some cases). Similarly, New York briefly had three-year terms in the 19th century, but switched back to two years before then going up to four in 1938.

View attachment 83392

What's the difference between Red and Orange?

 

[Ares96]

What's the difference between Red and Orange?

I fucked up making the key - red is before 1860.

 

[msmp]

Ares, for the states that had 3-year gubernatorial terms, do you know if the legislatures were synced or did they all still have 2 or 4 year terms?

 

[SultanArda]

Really, if you just look up "South Bedfordshire (constituency)" on Wiki, it's pretty much the map they show there (though that's the 1970s one post-boundary changes, it's still pretty close).

I tried that, but the fact that I was already quite sick of locating UK constituencies that seemed to be created solely to torture me, and I also am a not a great map reader myself.

 

[Ares96]

Ares, for the states that had 3-year gubernatorial terms, do you know if the legislatures were synced or did they all still have 2 or 4 year terms?

I think a fair few had annual elections, at least in the 19th century. In New Jersey, the General Assembly (the lower house) was elected annually and the Senate had three-year terms that coincided with gubernatorial elections; the 1947 constitution simply extended all these terms by a year.

 

[Thande]

I tried that, but the fact that I was already quite sick of locating UK constituencies that seemed to be created solely to torture me, and I also am a not a great map reader myself.

I get it, I remember trying to find all the 1918 constituencies a decade ago, before there were better online resources.

 

[iainbhx]

I get it, I remember trying to find all the 1918 constituencies a decade ago, before there were better online resources.

The 1885 ones are worse.