Ariosto's Works Repository

[Ariosto]

Over the many years I've been on AH.Com it has steadily become clearer to me that one of my major weaknesses in writing stories is.... writing the story itself. Certainly I can develop a concept or diagram on how I want things to go, I can't count the number of projects I have lying in folders that are at that stage, but putting the pen to paper and managing to churn out an actual tale is presently beyond my ability. What I have decided instead in leu of opening this Repository is to let you, the viewers, write tales of your own based on my works... i.e. I provide the base or foundation which you could then build from; especially well written interpretations I will threadmark.​

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Questions on how I arrived at certain ideas or the historical background of the concepts are certainly welcome as well.​

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Amendment I: I've opted to put all images within spoilers so as to reduce the length of the scroll, whilst also making it easier to find any particular image in any particular set. The sets themselves are also no longer going to be.... set, as I will on occasion expand their inventory while keeping to the theme; for example, a set that has a defined end year may find itself extended beyond that point with additional images, going from say 1912 to 2016 instead.​

Amendment III: Amendment I no longer applies.​

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Amendment II: I'm going to be throwing in personal commentary on each image and series; while still not a full-fledged posting, it should be enough to outline the basic conceptualization. I'll also be editing threadmarks with dates to inform viewers if content has been changed or expanded; I realize that there is technically a marker in the lower righthand corner that displays when a post has been last edited, but by putting them in the threadmark you can see it at a quicker glance.​

 

[Ariosto]

This is part of an older collection that I never completed, and I'm now committing myself to doing so. When it comes to changing up the American Electoral College there are a number of renditions that have been proposed or shown on the forum over the years. The most popular is to have the electors of any State divvied up according to the popular vote in said State, though apportionment through the winning Candidate in any Congressional District has its advocates as well. The problem with awarding Electors proportionally however is that it is rather simple for "ties" to form in States with an even number of Electors, with the actual margin between the candidates tending to be rather close, risking contingent elections in the House. In trying to avoid this conundrum or to at least mitigate it, I decided to divide Electors using the D'Hondte Method... or Jefferson Method, which is the same manner in which seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned after each decadal census. I had also never seen this method used before on AH.Com or Atlas and decided to pioneer it, see if it would result in any Ahistorical results. ​

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Explaining how Electors are apportioned below, each State has two Electors representing it's U.S. Senators; these are always rewarded to the winner of the State's popular vote. The remaining electors are then allotted to those candidates who received votes using the D'Hondte method. This felt like a decent and somewhat realistic compromise as it still placed importance on winning as many States as possible, but it would still be advantageous for a Candidate to appeal to voters in States where they would have not chance of winning. The only caveat to this is that there is an obvious advantage of "running up the numbers", but there have only been a handful of cases where this has translated into an advantage of significance.​

Spoiler: 1828 - Commentary

The only real quirk I noticed was that the result in New York did not change at all; New York elected its electors by Congressional District, and then those electors chose the final two to complete the electoral slate, and with both this and the Jefferson method it came to 20-16 in Jefferson's favor (so 18-16 to Jackson, then +2 when accounting for his victory Statewide). I don't believe this was emulated in any of the other elections I've tabulated thus far (I'm up to 1864 presently).

Spoiler: 1832 - Commentary

Two things of note.

First, I decided Clay half the electors that would normally have been assigned to Wirt; given the "Union Slate" as it was called was a joint effort by Anti-Masonics and National Republicans to try and keep Jackson from carrying the State, I came to the conclusion that the slate ultimately might have been shared by electors pledged to Clay and Wirt, much like the Democratic fusion slates in the 1860 Presidential election in New York or Pennsylvania. There is no real historic basis for this decision other than the nature of the Union Slate (I don't have the affiliations of the electors themselves for example), and is merely an educated guess.

Second, that Martin Van Buren nearly failed to get a majority; he garnered (150) of (144) needed, running (23) behind Andrew Jackson. (5) of these electors came from an Anti-Van Buren movement in the South who instead nominated former House Speaker and District Judge Philip Barbour, running quasi-fusion slates with Jackson as the Presidential-nominee. Barbour later withdrew, but the ticket still managed to win electors in Georgia (3) and North Carolina (2). The other (18) electors originated from Pennsylvania, who instead of voted for native Senator William Wilkins, though I don't know their reasoning. However even had Van Buren been denied a majority, his opponent when the Senate took up the election would have been John Sergeant, a noted Anti-Slavery advocate who'd gone against the Missouri Compromise. The support of the South Carolinian Nullifiers would have been required for Sergeant to win even had every National Republican voted the Party Line (and I'm fairly certain there would have been at least a couple of defections to Van Buren), but there is a stronger possibility they would abstain rather than consider Sergeant, meaning that his path to the Vice Presidency is more or less impossible.

Spoiler: 1836 - Commentary

While Van Buren managed to accrue a majority of (3), he could have easily lost this majority with the number of close States around the nation that year, which would have thrown the election to the House, leaving the Whigs divided between Harrison and White. Unfortunately for the Whigs, their party failed to attain a majority of the House delegations in the elections held up to that time, holding (10), the Democrat's having control of (14), and Maryland and Mississippi being tied up. There wouldn't have been any serious risk of Democratic defections given Harrison would more or less serve as a rubber stamp for Henry Clay's policies, and those considering voting for Hugh White would have earned the ire of Andrew Jackson himself and become persona no grata. Van Buren would have been safe barring an electoral majority favoring Harrison, which would have been nigh impossible.

I had hoped that John Tyler might have engendered enough support under Hugh White to have potentially come out ahead of Francis Granger, but that was not born out by the results. Tyler managed to attain the support of (54) electors, a net gain of (7), whereas Francis Granger managed to earn the support of (90) electors, a net gain of (13).

Spoiler: 1844 - Commentary

Birney won his single elector in New York by a rather close margin; it was at the apportionment of either the 32nd or 33rd elector where he managed to pick it up, and he didn't come close anywhere else. I should have, but didn't, do the calculations for if Birney's support had gone to Clay, the candidate he was considered a spoiler for; however with it Clay would have won at least the state electors of New York and Michigan for a gain of (4), meaning he would be (6) short of a majority. I might do another calculation later if anyone is curious to see if Clay manages to close that gap and win.

Spoiler: 1848 - Commentary

Finally, an ahistorical victor.

Unfortunately the nature of the background politics is a bit murky, so I really couldn't grant any level of confidence to the result I have displayed; it ultimately came down to a coin flip. I had initially assumed that Van Buren would endorse Zachary Taylor with other Free-Soilers following suit, but the sentiment of abolitionists at the time was strongly against him given his status as a slave-owner, a weakness that not even his soft support for the Wilmot Proviso was able to cure. Even ignoring that, and assuming that every Free Soil congressman in the House decided to support Taylor, this coalition would only control (12) out of the required (16) delegations, whereas the Democrat's themselves had (15) and would be able to act through William Butler once he was confirmed by the Senate. If in the unlikely event the OTL trend of House results were to continue, it wouldn't be long before the Democrat's had an unquestionable majority of the delegations.

Noting that Van Buren's actual pull would be minimal, I flipped a coin for each Free Soil Representative on whether they would vote for Taylor or Cass; virtually all of them went for Cass (flipping only Wisconsin), which was enough to give Cass the majority. More likely though the Free-Soilers would have abstained from voting entirely, which would mean at least of year of Acting President Butler before the election itself is resolved (with Cass favored, though Taylor would have an outside chance if the Whigs manage to score a number of victories in the 1849 Congressional elections).

Spoiler: 1852 - Commentary

This one was fairly straightforward, and given the number of States that Pierce managed to carry and the associated electoral bonuses that came with that, there was no real chance for the election being thrown into the House. Even if by some miracle Pierce had managed to torpedo his own campaign and drove enough voters away as to manage an electoral deadlock, by the end of 1852 the Democrats had a clear majority in terms of State delegations to the House and Senate, meaning Pierce and King would have been confirmed with little trouble.

The one highlight I had hoped for was for the Union ticket in Georgia to win an elector, as they had managed to attain (8.5%) of the vote there, but the (64.7%) of Pierce was high enough as to more or less dominate the electoral allocation of that State, with even Scott struggling with his (26.6%). Had the Union ticket won an elector there though I wouldn't be all that certain how best to represent it; Daniel Webster was the formal nominee yes, but, well, he was dead, meaning any electors may well have been voided. I've done research on this before and remember reading in the New York Times that there was an attempt in Georgia by the Union Party there to name Millard Fillmore as the new Presidential nominee (and so I could have then assigned him the elector), but there is nothing beyond that particular tidbit to my knowledge.

The Southern Rights Party suffered the same a similar situation in Alabama with their albeit worse (4.99%) of the vote.

Spoiler: 1856 - Commentary

Similar to 1836 this is another one that went down to the wire, with James Buchanan only winning the Presidency with four electors to spare. The weakness of the American Party in the South, or the Whig Party as it were as in some of these states the American Party simply didn't exist or was never properly organized, proved to be Buchanan's saving grace. Defections from the Whigs to the Democrats since the last Presidential election on all levels seems to have catastrophically injured the American Party's ability to compete in formerly competitive states like Georgia or North Carolina; and while they came within spitting distance in Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana and Missouri, the Whigs of 1852 had actually carried the former two and had been even closer in Louisiana. Had Fillmore managed to at least do as well as Winfield Scott did on a state-by-state basis in the South, the election would have been thrown into the House here.

But of course some of you are surely going to be wondering who would win in the House had he manage to do so.

Based on my calculation of the House delegations as they existed at the start of the Congressional session (which is actually quite hard to predict given the fluidity of Party affiliation in the 1854-1858 period), the Americans had at most (5) delegations, the Republicans at least (8) delegations, the Democrats at least (16) delegations, with (2) delegations being possibly tied between the Americans and the Democrats. Right from the start that means that James Buchanan (unless there are some Democratic defections) has a very strong possibility of being elected on the first ballot. The American Representatives in the South are very likely to cast their ballots for Buchanan should it come down either being him or Fremont, so that would be (4) more solidly in Buchanan's favor. Fremont could at most, with the help of American Representatives in the North, cobble together (11) delegations, so barring massive defections he is out of contention, whilst Fillmore's chances are nonexistent barring a deadlock between Fremont and Buchanan; even then the Democrats would probably be content to sit on the issue of the election indefinitely if only for the following reason:

John Breckinridge would have been confirmed by the Democratic Senate, they having (37) of (61) seats when their session began, so he was guaranteed the Vice Presidency, meaning that in the case of a deadlock in the House, he would have become the Acting President.

Spoiler: 1860 - Commentary

Regarding the election itself, there isn't much to say that most wouldn't already know. Abraham Lincoln did not carry a majority of the electors, or come particularly close for that matter, with Douglas being the major beneficiary except in those States where fusion slates were put together. There was some initial concern that Douglas would still not clear the threshold and pass Bell because of said fusion slates, but the Unionists under-performed in the South compared to how well Douglas did in the North; indeed, had Bell managed to carry Missouri then he would have been (2) electors shy of surpassing Douglas.

As for the fusion slates themselves, I calculated how the fusion slates were divided by multiplying for the proportion of electors each candidate had pledged on that slate. For instance, the New York slate had (18) electors who were to be pledged to Douglas out of (35), or(51.428....%). The slate itself managed to win (15) electors, so I applied that same multiplier and, when accounting for rounding, ended up with (8) electors for Douglas.

So the election predictably gets thrown into the House and Senate, which is where things get interesting.

The election in the Senate is fairly open and shut as the Democrats have a massive advantage (38-26-2), and Joseph Lane would be able to lose five Democratic votes to Hannibal Hamlin and still win selection with Breckinridges support, (34-33) . There is a problem in determining exactly where any defectors would come from, as the Democratic split was very real, and there were a lot of Democrats and Unionists in the House who were willing to abstain rather than vote for Breckinridge given the platform he ran under, the conduct of the campaign, so on and so forth. I tried to the best of my ability draw up a map illustrating the division.

Dark Green are those States which had two Democratic Senators which would have definitively vote for Lane as far as I could determine, and the Light Green are those were the single Democratic Senator would likely have voted in favor of Lane. The remainder are question marks, in that it becomes harder to determine. Darker shades of Red are those with two Democratic Senators, lighter shades are those with only one Democratic Senator.

In the case of Indiana, I would fully expect Jesse Bright to vote for Lane, leaving the questionable loyalty to Graham Fitch, which leaves the number of potential defections at five, which wouldn't be enough to prevent Lane's election. Of those, the only one I am certain would defect would be George Pugh of Ohio, who by that was wholly opposed to most of what Breckinridge and Lane stood for. Stephen Douglas likely wouldn't have defected, but I figured I'd mark him as questionable regardless.

The election in the House is less clean cut, and much of it comes to, again, the bad blood that resulted from the Democratic Conventions and the Presidential Campaign between the Constitutional (Southern) Democrats and the (Northern) Democrats. Many of the Americans/Opposition members of Congress are also going to be strongly in favor of Douglas given he was running on more platform more in line with their views, though not all of them. The delegations according to a piece in the New York Times were lined up as follows.

Blue are those favorable to Lincoln, Green to Breckinridge, Red to Douglas, Yellow to Bell. In the case of Arkansas, the delegation was equally divided between a Breckinridge Democrat and a Douglas Democrat. In the cases of Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland, the delegations were equally divided between American/Opposition Congressmen and Democrats. No one has a majority, with Lincoln the closest at (17), with Breckinridge following behind at (12).

Now, if we take Bell out of the running, I fully expect that the delegations would vote as follows:

Douglas picks up (2), Breckinridge picks up (2).

The problem from this point however is that, because Lane will become Acting President, there is no incentive for Southerners to break and support Douglas, and they also realize that those who support Douglas are in a pickle as few if any of them are willing to help swing their delegations to Lincoln. It has also been brought up on occasion that Stephen Douglas planned on withdrawing his name from contention so as to endorse Breckinridge should such a deadlock occur, but I personally don't believe it would have any major effect on the results; his name would still be presented, and I can't believe that many would willingly follow his lead in endorsing Breckinridge. Illinois for example would almost certainly flip to Lincoln as Democratic Rep. John Logan would have refused to do so, John Brown of Kentucky may well have opted to still cast his vote for Douglas.

After much thought, I came to the following conclusion:

Few of those that may have voted for Douglas would have favored Lincoln, and there is nothing forcing them to vote; many may well have just abstained in protest to Breckinridge but in deference to Douglas's wishes, which would have still allowed Breckinridge to capture the remaining delegations minus Illinois. Had the new incoming Congress been the one to run the election in the House, the addition of George P. Fisher of Delaware, as well as the defection George T. Cobb in New Jersey, would have resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln instead.

Spoiler: 1876 - Commentary

I suppose this shouldn't have come as a surprise given Hayes margin of victory with a single Electoral vote, but the contest itself remained rather close. Peter Cooper actually nearly managed to win Electors in Illinois and Michigan for the Greenback Party, missing out by a couple thousand votes in each case.

Spoiler: 1880 - Commentary

So a contingent election was triggered in part due to Weaver taking at least two Electors that otherwise would have been apportioned to Garfield.

The Vice Presidential Election is straightforward given the massive advantage the Democratic Party then had in the U.S. Senate, meaning that William English would have been immediately confirmed as the Vice President-elect. The Presidential contest was less clear with a fairly even division between the Democratic and Republican Parties when it came to the control of the House delegations. The initial set-up as it existed on February 9th was as so:

This meant that Garfield was a single delegation shy of being confirmed as the President-elect, easily solved by waiting a single month for the incoming Congress to take control of the contingent election with the Republicans having made a net gain of one delegation.

I will also note that the Readjuster Party managed to win a single Elector in Virginia, but it isn't represented given it was pledged to Hancock and English.

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[Ariosto]

Spoiler: 1888 - Commentary

Another alternative victor in Cleveland managing to win reelection against Harrison. Given how close the vote was Streeter's presence could have, were the Republican campaign slightly stronger in the South, have thrown the election into the House. In both the outgoing and incoming Congresses the Republicans had a majority of the State Delegations, meaning that Harrison would have been named President-elect, with a Republican majority in the Senate ensuring that Morton would have been named Vice President-elect.

Unfortunately for Republicans, the Solid South was starting to solidify behind the Democratic Party and subsequently distort the results of D'Hondte apportionment.

Spoiler: 1892 - Commentary

I honestly thought that this election would have gone to the House due to the presence of the Populists, but because of the Solid South lining behind Cleveland he again has managed to eke out an extremely narrow electoral majority. As I've mentioned in the opening post for this collection D'Hondte rewards those candidates that maximize the percentage of the vote they carry in any State; what I had not accounted for and which is becoming apparent now is that this system, and to a lesser extent proportional apportionment of the electors, essentially rewards voter suppression. The pool of potential Republican voters in the South is continuing to shrink and is leaving them unable to effectively compete there, whereas in the North the Democratic Party is still able to win heaps of Electors if not the States themselves.

The sectionalism of the Populists is also made more apparent with this apportionment, Weaver failing to carry any Electors in the Midwest or Northeast.

Spoiler: 1896 - Commentary

At the risk of sounding like a broken record... Solid South. There is no reason why the Electoral Vote should have been as close as it is.

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[Ariosto]

Spoiler: United States as United Kingdom Commentary

As it says on the tin, an idea I have toyed with over the years is one where British elections are interposed over American elections, and only now have I finally put it to paper without crumpling it up again; this is the second iteration after a prior one about a year back. This still isn't as polished as I might like, there may be a few errors here and there (turnout) that I missed, but that seems to always be the case these days for me. Now I did try to match people to their American counterparts on a loose basis, very loose, but even that began to fall apart once I got to the Mid-20's or so. For those of you who will notice by the way, these results do not include Ireland or Northern Ireland, and that is for the very simple reason that I wasn't keen to trying to figure out a way to represent it within the United States; in previous iterations I had thought maybe Cuba could serve as a substitute, but I ultimately preferred to ignore the situation entirely and represent the electoral situation as it existed solely in Great Britain.

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[Ariosto]

 

[Ariosto]

Spoiler: Commentary

The original lengthy commentary was unfortunately deleted in the "System Purge of 8/2/21".... so I apologize if this is a bit bare bones in comparison. What is displayed is meant to show the state of the Presidential Race as it stood in the middle of June when Perot was pulling (~38%) of the voting intention, but I didn't want to use a simple uniform swing on a State by State level. What I did instead is limit the pull of the gaining candidates (Perot) to the losses of the losing candidates (Bush and Clinton), therefore meaning that each vote gained is an actual voter, not being pulled out of the ether. This isn't a perfect system as it doesn't reflect cases where a candidate could have potentially swamped another candidate in a State, the exchanges in those cases are predictably smaller then they are in Swing States, but I personally feel that it is more accurate "on the whole" when compared to more the more traditional methods. Unfortunately I could not implement this system at the County level for the County map, for the very simple reason that I don't have the patience to manually tally all the numbers of thousands of counties as would be required; fifty States and the District are far more doable in that respect. Still, the county map does highlight where support for our candidates was concentrated or found lacking, and it is neat to see cases where that support actually cross State lines; not sure if I am going to make it a regular feature though, as it took far longer than I had anticipated.