1847 New York special judicial election

Background

The New York State Constitution of 1846 re-organized the State's judicial system and created the Court of Appeals. Four of the judges were elected statewide, the other four were chosen by a rotative system from the New York Supreme Court district benches.

The Whig state convention met on May 19 at Syracuse, New York, and nominated Whittlesey, Noxon, Reynolds and David Lord. Lord declined the nomination, and Jordan was substituted on the ticket.

Results

The votes are the total of Democratic and Anti-Rent votes for Gardiner and Bronson, and the total of Whig and Anti-Rent votes for Jordan, Whittlesey and Lamport. The Anti-Rent endorsement did not influence the result of this election.

The official result did not count the votes from Hamilton County, which were not returned, and 1,011 votes for Whittlesey in Herkimer County, which were cast for "Frederick W. Whittlesey".

The whole Democratic ticket was elected. Those elected were then classified by drawing lots on June 22. Jewett drew the two-year term, Bronson the four-year term, Ruggles the six-year term, and Gardiner the eight-year term. The half year remaining in 1847 was added to these terms, and afterwards every two years in odd-numbered years one judge was elected to an eight-year term.

Notes

Sources

• Judges of the Court of Appeals at http://www.courts.state.ny.us/history/elecbook/thereshallbe/pg90.htm Court History New York
• Results: The Whig Almanac and United States Register 1848

References

1. At the time ballots with the name of the candidate were cast. It happened sometimes that the local party organization had ballots printed with spelling mistakes or wrong middle initials. Most election inspectors counted the votes only if the ballots showed a perfect match of the candidate's name, and listed variant spellings as "scattering votes"; see also [[New York state election, 1851#Contested election]]