Popular Vote

On Nov. 8 the U. S. electorate set three records. It gave Franklin Delano Roosevelt the biggest winning vote for President in history. It gave Herbert Hoover the biggest vote of any losing nominee. The total vote -- about 39,000,000 -- surpassed the 1928 record by some 2,000,000.

Last week the Associated Press compiled the popular vote, with 30 States officially complete and the others nearly so, as follows: Roosevelt, 22,314,058; Hoover, 15,575,474. The Hoover vote was 559,031 more than the Smith vote in 1928, the Roosevelt vote 921,868 more than the Hoover vote of that year. The Roosevelt plurality (6,738.584) was still exceeded by that given Calvin Coolidge (7,338,513) over his major opponent in 1924 when the La Follette ticket got almost five million votes. Despite the size of his popular vote President Hoover remained the most badly beaten nominee in the Electoral College (59-to-472) since Lincoln overwhelmed McClellan in 1864.

With about 8% of the precincts still missing the Associated Press canvass revealed that 1,008,164 or more citizens cast their presidential ballots for minor party candidates, tripling the size of the 1928 "wasted" vote. Third Party votes:

Thomas, Socialist 805,813

Foster, Communist 69,104

Upshaw, Prohibition 59,656

Harvey, Liberty 45,045

Reynolds, Socialist-Labor 21,858

Coxey, Farmer-Labor 6,465

Cox, Jobless-Liberal 219

"Populist" (no candidate) 4

In 1928 the Thomas vote was 267,420, the Foster vote 48,770. The 919,799 votes given Debs in 1920 still stood as the Socialist record.

Day after New York City's special mayoralty election it was announced that Acting Mayor Joseph Vincent ("Holy Joe") McKee, no candidate, had received some 137,000 "protest" votes, to the alarmed dismay of Tammany Hall and its bull-jowled nominee for Mayor, John Patrick ("Potatoes") O'Brien. To cast a McKee vote citizens had to write his name in on voting machines--a process hampered by ignorance, lack of pencils and the hostility of Tammany election officials.

Last week the Board of Elections announced that the McKee vote was 232,501--not counting 9,525 ineligible ballots in which the Acting Mayor's name was misspelled 151 different ways.

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