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The1948 United States Senate election in Georgia took place on November 2, 1948. Incumbent Democratic U.S. SenatorRichard Russell Jr. was re-elected to a fourth term in office.
As was common at the time, the Democratic candidate ran with no opposition in the general election so therefore the Democratic primary was the real contest, and winning the primary was consideredtantamount to election.
The Democraticprimary election was held on September 8, 1948.
From 1917 until 1962, theDemocratic Party in theU.S. state ofGeorgia used a voting system called thecounty unit system to determine victors in statewide primary elections.[1]
The system was ostensibly designed to function similarly to theElectoral College, but in practice the large ratio of unit votes for small, rural counties to unit votes for more populous urban areas provided outsized political influence to the smaller counties.[2][3]
Under the county unit system, the 159 counties in Georgia were divided by population into three categories. The largest eight counties were classified as "Urban", the next-largest 30 counties were classified as "Town", and the remaining 121 counties were classified as "Rural". Urban counties were given 6 unit votes, Town counties were given 4 unit votes, and Rural counties were given 2 unit votes, for a total of 410 available unit votes. Each county's unit votes were awarded on awinner-take-all basis.[2][3]
Candidates were required to obtain amajority of unit votes (not necessarily a majority of the popular vote), or 206 total unit votes, to win the election. If no candidate received a majority in the initial primary, arunoff election was held between the top two candidates to determine a winner.[4]
| Democratic primary[5][6] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | % | CUV |
| Richard Russell Jr. | 703,048 | 99.98 | 410 |
| William C. Lankford | 118 | 0.02 | 0 |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Richard Russell Jr. (incumbent) | 362,104 | 99.89% | ||
| Write-In | Larkin Marshall | 388 | 0.11% | ||
| Write-In | Ellis Arnall | 9 | 0.00% | ||
| Write-In | Roy Harris | 2 | 0.00% | ||
| Write-In | Harry Sommers | 1 | 0.00% | ||
| Turnout | 362,504 | ||||
| Democratichold | Swing | ||||
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