The Alliance Herald

THE FINAL ELECTION RETURNS
Now that the official and final complete general election returns
are all in from the presidential election it is interesting to note that
the popular vote of the United States gave President Wilson a plurality
of 568,822, the greatest popular plurality in the history of the
United States, with the exception of the year 1872 when Ulysses S.
Grant was elected.
Another interesting feature of the national election is the fact
that neither Democrats nor Republicans will have a majority of the
next house of representatives and that a mere handful of independ-
ents will determine which side will control the organization of that
branch of congress. The house stands: Republicans, 214; Democrats,
213; Independents, 2; Progressives, 2; Prohibitionist, 1; Socialist, 1;
and 2 seats contested.
As compiled by the national news gathering agencies, the com-
plete official returns on the presidential election show that Wilson re-
ceived 9,116,296 votes and Hughes 8,547,474, a plurality of 568,822
for Wilson. In 1912 Wilson (Dem.) received 6,297,099; Taft (Rep.),
3,846,399; Roosevelt (Prog.), 4,124,959.
The total popular vote for the four candidates in 1916 was 18,
638,871, against 15,045,322 in 1912. This is an increase of 3,593,549.
accounted for by the increased population and the woman vote in the
new suffrage states. The following table shows the vote by states for
Wilson and Hughes:
Total
9,116,296
8,547,474
The vote for Benson, socialist candidate for president, was 750,
000, with eight missing states estimated, against 901,873
for Debs
(Soc.) in 1912. The vote for Hanly, Prohibitionist candidate,
was
225,101, against 207,928 for Chafin in 1912.