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Caprice's Maps and What-Not

It took a While, but here's 1895:

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One would expect the two-term incumbent Dolph, having won an overall majority in the first ballot and only not being elected because he only won a majority in the State Senate and not the State House, to have been elected in the first joint ballot, but because this was Oregon, that did not happen. Instead, the Republicans, with supermajorities in each houses, took a whopping sixty ballots to choose someone.
 
One thing I don't think people realise is that a big reason for the 17th amendment was not necessarily a Principled Progressive Reform or even to tackle the corruption exerted on the senator selection process, but just because people were sick of half the Senate elections resulting in "legislature failed to elect", often after zillions of ballots as @Caprice describes. When I was doing a big table of the Senate elections, I was surprised by just how many senators were appointed by governors in states where that was the next constitutional option after the legislature failed.
 
Thande said:
. . .often after zillions of ballots. . .
Click to expand...

It was a requirement, pretty much; under the 1866 law regulating Senatorial elections, the state legislature was required to ballot at least once a day until a choice was made. In the deadlocked Oregon elections I've covered so far, the general procedure seems to have been to hold exactly one ballot a day, then on the last day of the session there'd be 20-30 ballots until someone finally got chosen.

Given the whole, well, nightmare that was the 1885 election, I've decided to resume work on something somehow less hellish: 1970 block groups and enumeration districts, the building blocks used for state legislative districts. Here's the Portland area:

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You'll notice that outlying regions are often given ranges of EDs; this is because I don't have the requisite maps on hand. I worry I will have to go to Maryland myself to find them.
 
As an Oregon local history buff I appreciate all of this detailed work!

Caprice said:
Next up is the 1898 election, which was held late in a special session because *checks notes* the State House disintegrated over it when it was supposed to happen in 1897. Oh, joy...
Click to expand...

The Hold-Up Session indirectly led to the introduction of the initiative and referendum process to the United States (it was known as the Oregon System for a while before it became more widespread), so there is a lot of room for AH contingency in these results even aside from who got sent to the Senate.
 
For 1885, I'm starting with the totals per ballot instead of doing the spreadsheet of votes ballot-by-ballot so I can tell what candidates were worth labeling separately. Things are going well (/s):

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And voila, up to when the session ended (not counting the special session where they actually did go on to elect a guy). With no less than 132 candidates receiving votes, you can tell why I have a "scattering" row on the main tables.

I think I'll have one row for Slater, one row for whichever non-Slater Democrat was in vogue on a given ballot, then for the Republicans, rows for Hirsch, Moody, George, Earhart, Boise, Hare, Williams, Failing, Kelsay, Watson, and Coleman if he turns out to be a Republican. Maybe also Johnson and Hill? It's a lot of candidates, is the problem, and there's only so many letters.
 
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