Methods and sources.

Each state’s electoral votes, and who received them, are stored in the site’s state results file, together with a reconciliation file that lists every exception: faithless electors, Maine and Nebraska district votes, unpledged electors, blank ballots and rejected returns, each with its source. An automatic test adds up every state, candidate by candidate, for all 60 elections and fails unless the sums equal each election’s national totals.

A second automatic test compares the same data with the National Archives’ Electoral College pages for 60 elections, state by state and candidate by candidate. It found 13 differences, in 8 elections. The test fails if a new difference appears or a listed one goes away. Each one is explained below; none of them changes who won a state or an election. Most come from the Archives counting electors appointed where the site counts electors who actually voted, or from votes the Archives prints but does not count (Georgia in 1868 and 1872). In 1800 the Archives’ Virginia row leaves out Burr’s 21 votes, although its own total for Burr includes them. In 1796 the reconciliation file names “Adams”, which the comparison cannot tell apart from Samuel Adams; the full-name check of John Adams’ 71 agrees.

Of the 2,342 times a state cast electoral votes, the site has:

Where no figure has been found in a source the site may reuse, or the only figure failed a cross-check (see below), the state’s page says “State popular vote not yet sourced” instead of showing a number. That is 401 state-years today.

Sources

Every popular-vote figure names its source. These are all the sources the vote files cite:

• Algara & Amlani, U.S. county presidential returns 1868-2020

  Covers:

  Democratic, Republican and total votes by county, 1868-1972 here (every state with counties; no Alaska). Summed to states by scripts/data/build_historic.py. Not used for state-years that fail the cross-check gate.

  Licence:

  CC0 1.0

  Version:

  Dataverse version 1.1 (released 2022-09-04); datafile id 5028532

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  5 state-years, 1 legislature label (1872–1964)

• The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1894

  Covers:

  Every state's 1892 popular vote for Cleveland, Harrison, Weaver, Bidwell and Wing. The table prints no state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1894_p375.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1894 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanacency1894newy (leaf 395)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  44 state-years (1892)

• The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1914

  Covers:

  Every state's 1912 popular vote for Wilson, Taft, Roosevelt, Debs, Chafin and Reimer, and each state's total vote. Page 724 also states Florida's 1868 electors were chosen by the legislature. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1914_p725.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1914 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanacency1914newy (leaf 731)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1912)

• Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency (1898)

  Covers:

  Which states had their electors chosen by the legislature, 1789-1868, with a quote and page per election. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/legislature_choices.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1898 edition, Internet Archive item historyofpreside00stanuoft

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  53 legislature labels (1789–1868)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 4, 1924

  Covers:

  Every state's vote for Coolidge, Davis, La Follette, Faris, Nations, Wallace, Johns and Foster, scattering, and the state total. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1924.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1924)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 2, 1948

  Covers:

  Every state's popular vote for every ticket the table lists (Truman, Dewey, Thurmond, Wallace, Thomas, Watson, Teichert, Dobbs, others) and the state total. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1948.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov (53 pages)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1948)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 8, 1960

  Covers:

  Every state's 1960 popular vote for Kennedy, Nixon, the Mississippi unpledged electors, minor tickets and total. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1960.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  50 state-years (1960)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 3, 1964

  Covers:

  Every state's 1964 popular vote for Johnson, Goldwater, minor tickets and total (the table prints no figures for the District of Columbia). Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1964.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  50 state-years (1964)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 5, 1968

  Covers:

  Every state and the District of Columbia, every popular-vote column of the presidential table, including state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1968.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  51 state-years (1968)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1972

  Covers:

  Every state and the District of Columbia, every popular-vote column of the presidential table, including state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1972.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  51 state-years (1972)

• The World Almanac for 1873

  Covers:

  Every state's 1872 vote for Greeley, Grant, O'Conor (Straight Democrats) and Black (Temperance), and the 1868 vote for Seymour and Grant. Transcriptions: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1873_p75_1872.json and world_almanac_1873_p75_1868.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1873 edition, bound with 1872 in Internet Archive item worldalmanac18721873newy (marked NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT), leaf 242

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  68 state-years (1868–1872)

• The Tribune Almanac and Political Register for 1878

  Covers:

  Every state's 1876 vote for Hayes, Tilden, Cooper (Greenback) and Smith (Prohibition). Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/tribune_almanac_1878_p60.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1878 edition, bound in the 1875-1879 volume, Internet Archive item tribunealmanacpo18751879newy, leaf 503

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  34 state-years (1876)

• The World Almanac 1886

  Covers:

  Every state's 1884 popular vote for Cleveland, Blaine, Butler and St. John. The table prints no state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1886_p131.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1886 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanac00unse (leaf 139)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  76 state-years (1880–1884)

• The World Almanac 1891

  Covers:

  Every state's 1888 popular vote for Cleveland, Harrison, Fisk, Streeter, Cowdrey and Curtis, and each state's total vote. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1891_p274.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1891 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanac1891newy (leaf 288)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  38 state-years (1888)

• The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1897

  Covers:

  Every state's 1896 vote for Bryan, McKinley, Palmer, Levering, Bentley and Matchett. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1897_p423.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1897 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanacency1897newy

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  45 state-years (1896)

• The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1901

  Covers:

  Every state's 1900 vote for Bryan, McKinley, Woolley, Debs, Malloney, Barker, Ellis and Leonard, and each state's total vote. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1901_p437.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1901 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanacency1901newy

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  45 state-years (1900)

• The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1905

  Covers:

  Every state's 1904 vote for Parker, Roosevelt, Debs, Swallow, Corrigan and Watson, and each state's total vote. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1905_p445.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1905 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanacency1905newy

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  45 state-years (1904)

• The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1910

  Covers:

  Every state's 1908 popular vote for Bryan, Taft, Debs, Chafin, Gillhaus, Watson and Hisgen, and each state's total vote. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1910_p649.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1910 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanacency1910newy (leaf 801)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  46 state-years (1908)

• The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1917

  Covers:

  Every state's 1916 popular vote for Wilson, Hughes, Benson, Hanly and Reimer, and each state's total vote. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/world_almanac_1917_p830.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain in the United States: published before 1931

  Version:

  1917 edition, Internet Archive item worldalmanacency1917newy (leaf 848)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1916)

• Statistics of the Congressional and Presidential Election of November 2, 1920

  Covers:

  Every state's vote for Harding, Cox, Debs and Watkins (summary table) and the other tickets listed on the state pages. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1920.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1920)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 6, 1928

  Covers:

  Every state's 1928 presidential vote by ticket, with state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1928.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1928)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 8, 1932

  Covers:

  Every state's 1932 presidential vote by ticket, with state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1932.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1932)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 3, 1936

  Covers:

  Every state's 1936 popular vote for Roosevelt, Landon, Lemke, Thomas, Browder, other and total. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1936.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1936)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 5, 1940

  Covers:

  Every state's 1940 popular vote for Roosevelt (with New York's American Labor line), Willkie, Thomas, Babson, Browder, other and total. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1940.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1940)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1944

  Covers:

  Every state's popular vote for every ticket the table lists (Roosevelt, Dewey, Thomas, Watson, Teichert, others) and the state total. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1944.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov (55 pages)

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1944)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 4, 1952

  Covers:

  Every state's vote for every listed presidential ticket in 1952, with state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1952.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1952)

• Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 6, 1956

  Covers:

  Every state's vote for every listed presidential ticket in 1956, by party, with state totals. Transcription: data/votes/transcriptions/clerk_1956.json.

  Licence:

  Public domain: a work of the United States government (17 U.S.C. 105)

  Version:

  Scanned PDF on clerk.house.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  48 state-years (1956)

• MIT Election Data and Science Lab, U.S. President 1976–2024

  Covers:

  Popular votes for president by state and candidate, all 50 states and DC, 1976–2024

  Licence:

  CC0 1.0

  Version:

  Dataverse V10.1 (released 2026-09-04); file 1976-2024-president.csv, datafile id 13887042, MD5 405af83db7625cb35d8c19a5ebe029ff; row versions 20210113 and 2025-11-20

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  663 state-years (1976–2024)

• Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 84

  Covers:

  Official popular votes for president by state, 1984; used here only where it corrects the MIT file (see data/votes/overrides_modern.json)

  Licence:

  Public domain (work of the U.S. government, 17 U.S.C. § 105)

  Version:

  scanned PDF as published on fec.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  1 single figure (1984)

• Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 92

  Covers:

  Official popular votes for president by state, 1992; used here only where it corrects the MIT file (see data/votes/overrides_modern.json)

  Licence:

  Public domain (work of the U.S. government, 17 U.S.C. § 105)

  Version:

  scanned PDF as published on fec.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  3 single figures (1992)

• Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2004: presidential results

  Covers:

  Official popular votes for president by state, 2004; used here only where it corrects the MIT file (see data/votes/overrides_modern.json)

  Licence:

  Public domain (work of the U.S. government, 17 U.S.C. § 105)

  Version:

  Excel workbook as published on fec.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  2 single figures (2004)

• Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2012: presidential results

  Covers:

  Official popular votes for president by state, 2012; used here only where it corrects the MIT file (see data/votes/overrides_modern.json)

  Licence:

  Public domain (work of the U.S. government, 17 U.S.C. § 105)

  Version:

  Excel workbook as published on fec.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  1 single figure (2012)

• Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2016

  Covers:

  Official popular votes for president by state, 2016; used here only where it corrects the MIT file (see data/votes/overrides_modern.json)

  Licence:

  Public domain (work of the U.S. government, 17 U.S.C. § 105)

  Version:

  Excel workbook as published on fec.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  3 single figures (2016)

• Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2020

  Covers:

  Official popular votes for president by state, 2020; used here only where it corrects the MIT file (see data/votes/overrides_modern.json)

  Licence:

  Public domain (work of the U.S. government, 17 U.S.C. § 105)

  Version:

  Excel workbook as published on fec.gov

  Retrieved:

  2026-10-03

  Used for:

  1 single figure (2020)

1976–2024: the MIT file and the FEC

For these years the published figure is the MIT Election Lab file. Its figures were compared with the Federal Election Commission’s official results for 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024: 1,497 candidate figures in all. 88 could not be found in the FEC documents, and 107 differed. 16 of those differences are in the 98 state-years whose FEC page exists only as a poor scan that could not be read reliably, so they remain unverified and change nothing on the site. Of the rest, 10 differed by more than 0.1% of the state’s vote, and in every one of them the site shows the FEC figure instead. Altogether 11 figures in 9 state-years come from the FEC, 1 of them a candidate the MIT file did not name. Each such figure cites the FEC document on its own line, and the state’s page has a note giving both numbers. Smaller differences keep the MIT figure.

Added up, the state figures give each year’s winner and runner-up a national share within 0.09 point of the national figure shown on the election page. 3 third-party shares differ by more than 0.1 point, because the source puts some of those candidates’ votes on unnamed lines.

1868–1972: official tables

For these years 1,219 state-years come from official tables copied by hand from named public-domain documents, with the page recorded: the House Clerk’s election statistics from 1920, and World Almanac and Tribune Almanac tables before that. The documents are The World Almanac for 1873, The Tribune Almanac and Political Register for 1878, The World Almanac 1886, The World Almanac 1891, The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1894, The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1897, The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1901, The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1905, The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1910, The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1914, The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1917, Statistics of the Congressional and Presidential Election of November 2, 1920, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 4, 1924, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 6, 1928, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 8, 1932, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 3, 1936, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 5, 1940, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1944, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 2, 1948, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 4, 1952, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 6, 1956, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 8, 1960, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 3, 1964, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 5, 1968 and Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1972.

Each table was copied digit by digit. Every column was added up and compared with the total the document prints for it, and every state row with its printed state total. Printed tables have arithmetic slips of their own: 96 checks fail because of the document itself, and each one is recorded, with the cells involved, in that table’s transcription file.

A public-domain county file (Algara & Amlani, U.S. county presidential returns 1868-2020) is now used only as a cross-check. Of 2,427 comparisons of its Democratic and Republican sums with the official tables, 1,033 differ by some amount, and 127 state-years differ by more than 2% and more than 500 votes, against the tables or against Wikipedia’s state tables (used only for this check, never published). The county file proved badly off for some states: Maryland 19, Georgia 10, New York 9, Texas 9, Virginia 9, Alabama 6, South Carolina 5, Arkansas 4, Delaware 4, Florida 4, Kansas 4, Louisiana 4, Mississippi 4, Tennessee 4, California 3, Idaho 3, Michigan 3 and New Mexico 3, and 17 other states with one or two each.

Some tables print one side’s return for a state whose result was disputed (Arkansas 1872, Louisiana 1872, Florida 1876, Louisiana 1876 and South Carolina 1876). Those figures are not published. Where the county sums agree with the recognised result they are kept, and the state’s note quotes the table’s figure and page; otherwise the state reads “not yet sourced”. 5 state-years still use county sums, District of Columbia 1964 because the official table prints no figure there. 1 state-year is withheld: Louisiana 1872. Louisiana's 1872 return was disputed: two rival returning boards reported different results, and Congress counted none of Louisiana's electoral votes.

Before popular votes were universal

54 state-years read “electors chosen by the legislature”. Each label is used only where a cited source says so for that state and election (Algara & Amlani, U.S. county presidential returns 1868-2020 and Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency (1898)), and the quotation is stored with the record. Nothing is inferred: everything else without a sourced vote reads “not yet sourced”.

Reader notes

A state page carries a note when the numbers need explaining: the candidate figures do not add up to the source’s total, “Other candidates” includes blank or void ballots, the source lumps several candidates on one unnamed line, a figure was replaced by an official one, a figure was withheld, or the source itself carries a caveat. There are 1,249 notes on 1,119 state-years.

Some well-known election reference sites are not used for the vote figures or the stories, because their terms do not allow their data to be reused.

Some state pages tell what that state is known for in one election. The rule is that every sentence carries a source link and a quotation copied exactly from that source, and at least one source per sentence is not Wikipedia. A checking script fetches every cited page and fails if any quotation is not on it; the format rules are also checked by an automatic test. The script is run by hand, and each story records the date it last passed.

There are 40 stories, last checked 2026-10-03.

The lesson packets were drafted with AI tools. A packet counts as fact-checked only after every factual claim in all five grade bands has been checked against a published source and every wrong or unsupported claim fixed. So far that is 1 election of 60: 1860. Every other packet is labelled “Not yet fact-checked” on its own page.

Much of the site, including the code, the design and much of the written text, is made with AI tools under the editor’s direction.

• Checked by automatic tests: electoral votes against national totals and against the National Archives; that every state-year has exactly one popular-vote record or status; that the popular-vote leader in each state is the state’s recorded winner, or the difference is explained; that every FEC replacement is published with its source and a note; that no county sum that failed the cross-check is published; that every source entry is complete; the story format; and that the download file matches the data.
• Checked by fetching the sources: the quotations in the state stories, and the official tables and FEC documents used for the vote files, which were read when the files were built.
• Not yet checked: the written context on election, era, candidate and party pages; the national popular-vote and turnout figures on election pages, except where the state sums above are compared with them; and classroom packets other than those listed above.

If you find an error, please report it. The corrections policy and the log of past corrections are on the contact page.