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410 county unit votes 206 unit votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Popular vote by county County unit voteCounty results Vandiver: 50-60% 60-70% 70-80% 80-90% >90% Bodenhamer: 50-60% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The1958 Georgia gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 1958.
Lieutenant Governor Ernest Vandiver won the Democratic primary on September 10 with 80.51% of the vote and 400 out of 410 county unit votes. At this time, Georgia was a one-party state, and the Democratic nomination was tantamount to victory. Vandiver won the November general election without an opponent.
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]
Bodenhamer ran a "biblical segregationist" campaign[5] aligned with incumbent GovernorMarvin Griffin, whom Vandiver had alienated during their term together.[6] He opened his campaign by showing pictures of Vandiver between two Negro politicians and said, "Birds of a feather flock together."[6] He accused Vandiver of being "the candidate of the NAACP."[5] Vandiver responded by promising that "no, not one" black would be admitted to Georgia's white schools.[5]
Lee Roy Abernathy, a gospel singer from Canton who frequently appeared on Atlanta television, also ran on a platform promising to diminish the powers of the governor and make monthly television reports to the people of Georgia.[6]
| Candidate | Popular vote | County unit vote | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | |
| Ernest Vandiver | 499,477 | 80.51 | 400 | 97.56 |
| William T. Bodenhamer | 87,830 | 14.16 | 10 | 2.44 |
| Lee Roy Abernathy | 33,099 | 5.34 | ||
| Write-in | 3 | 0.00 | ||
| Total | 620,409 | 100.00 | 410 | 100.00 |
| Source:[7] | ||||
In the decisive county unit count, Vandiver won 400 out of 410 votes, with Bodenhamer winning the remaining ten.[8] This was the last primary election held under the county unit rule, which was ruled unconstitutional by theSupreme Court of the United States inGray v. Sanders.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Ernest Vandiver | 168,414 | 100.00% | ||
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