We have the thread about what will happen if / when Republicans refuse to certify an election won by a Democrat. That seems like an extreme step, which is why it’s all the scarier that it seems (IMHO) not only possible, but likely to happen during the 2022 midterms. That got me thinking about historical examples. AFAIK this has never happened in the United States, but I’m not a historian, and maybe this has happened in past, perhaps state level offices around the time of the Civil War or some such thing. Maybe it’s happened in other nations as well when a democratic government gets overthrown. So here’s the question.
Has there been any elections in which the candidate who won was denied their elected office based upon the refusal of those counting the votes to certify the victory? Let’s exclude things like candidates who die right before the election or who withdraw due to some scandal coming to light. Any election for government office is up for consideration, federal, state, local, or whatever level other countries may have if different than those. All countries and all time periods are up for consideration. Let’s not get silly by including things like homecoming queen at your local high school.
ETA: Let’s not get into a debate on whether the rules of the election in question are fair. I don’t want to rehash the electoral college or gerrymandering in this thread. This is about those counting the votes, not about who was allowed to vote or whether or not the rules are set up to allow for a minority victory.
It has happened in the past, not necessarily for suspected election certification but for other reasons. However the Supreme Court has ruled that the two houses of Congress don’t have that power in Powell v McCormack.
In 1967, the House of Representatives refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell of New York, who had just been re-elected for something like the 10th time. Powell may or may not have been corrupt; he spent little time in his home district; and it’s very clear that his colleagues in the House didn’t like him. However, his constituents DID like him, and returned him to office in a special election. The House tried to strip him of his seniority. The case ended up in the Supreme Court. Powell eventually won, but was defeated for reelection in 1970.
You may also want to include the 2008 Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. The official certified vote had Coleman winning by 215 votes. The recount put Franken ahead by 312 votes. That went to the state Supreme Court, where Franken prevailed.
I suppose you could count the election of Bobby Sands, IRA hunger striker and prison inmate, to the British Parliament in 1981. Sands died in prison less than a month after his electoral victory, without ever taking his seat, and shortly thereafter the Thatcher government passed a law preventing anybody else in prison for more than one year from being elected.
If I may suggest, this doesn’t meet the criteria of the thread. Are you suggesting that Franken wasn’t the “winner”? He may have been behind after the first totals came in, but part of the rules of the game was for a recount procedure and he was declared the winner after the full rules were followed.
This would be like saying that an NFL team didn’t really win the game because the other team’s would be game winning touchdown pass was overturned on replay review.
But I agree with Adam Clayton Powell. The House thought he was corrupt and refused to seat him even though he was a clear winner. The US Supreme Court said no can do. You can expel members for misconduct but not refuse to seat them at the outset.
