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1960 United States presidential election in Illinois

← 1956 November 8, 1960 1964 →
Turnout	86.51%
Nominee John F. Kennedy Richard Nixon Party Democratic Republican Home state Massachusetts California Running mate Lyndon B. Johnson Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Electoral vote 27 0 Popular vote 2,377,846 2,368,988 Percentage 49.98% 49.80%
County results Kennedy   50-60%   60-70% Nixon   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%
President before election Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican Elected President John F. Kennedy Democratic

Elections in Illinois
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The 1960 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 8, 1960, as part of the 1960 United States presidential election. State voters chose 27 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

In the nation's second-closest race following Hawaii, Illinois was won by Senator John F. Kennedy (D–Massachusetts), running with Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, with 49.98% of the popular vote against incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon (R–California), running with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., with 49.80% of the popular vote, a margin of victory of only 0.18%. This was the last time that a Democrat would win Illinois by only a single digit margin of victory.

Primaries

Turnout

Turnout in the state-run primary elections (Democratic and Republican) was 16.43% with a total of 836,458 votes cast.

Turnout during the general election was 86.51%, with 4,757,409 votes cast. Both major parties held non-binding state-run preferential primaries on April 12.

Democratic

1960 Illinois Democratic presidential primary

← 1956 April 12, 1960 (1960-04-12) 1964 →

Candidate John F. Kennedy Adlai Stevenson II Stuart Symington Home state Massachusetts Illinois Missouri Popular vote 34,332 8,029 5,744 Percentage 64.57% 15.10% 10.80%   Candidate Hubert Humphrey Home state Minnesota Popular vote 4,283 Percentage 8.06%

The 1960 Illinois Democratic presidential primary was held on April 12, 1960, in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Democratic Party's state primaries ahead of the 1960 presidential election.

The popular vote was a non-binding "beauty contest". Delegates were instead elected by direct votes by congressional district on delegate candidates.

All candidates were write-ins. Kennedy ran a write-in campaign, and no candidate actively ran against him in Illinois.

Not all of the vote-getters had been declared candidates. Johnson, Stevenson, and Symington had all sat out the primaries.

Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, head of the Cook County Democratic Party, promised to deliver Kennedy the support of Cook County's delegates, so long as Kennedy won competitive primaries in other states.

Republican

1960 Illinois Republican presidential primary

← 1956 April 12, 1960 (1960-04-12) 1964 →

Candidate Richard Nixon Home state California Popular vote 782,849 Percentage 99.94%

The 1960 Illinois Republican presidential primary was held on April 12, 1960, in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Republican Party's state primaries ahead of the 1960 presidential election.

The preference vote was a "beauty contest". Delegates were instead selected by direct-vote in each congressional district on delegate candidates.

Nixon ran unopposed in the primary.

Results

Results by county

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

• Alexander
• Cook
• Christian
• Clinton
• Rock Island

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Union

Analysis

Some, including Republican legislators and journalists, believed that Kennedy benefited from vote fraud from Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful Chicago political machine.

Daley's machine was known for "delivering whopping Democratic tallies by fair means and foul." Republicans tried and failed to overturn the results at the time—as well as in ten other states. Some journalists also later claimed that mobster Sam Giancana and his Chicago crime syndicate "played a role" in Kennedy's victory. Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory, but Nixon gave a speech three days after the election that he would not contest the election.

A myth arose that Daley held back much of the Chicago vote until the late morning hours of November 9. However, when the Republican Chicago Tribune went to press, 79% of Cook County precincts had reported, compared to just 62% of Illinois's precincts overall. Moreover, Nixon never led in Illinois, and Kennedy's lead merely shrank as election night went on. Earl Mazo, a reporter for the pro-Nixon New York Herald Tribune and his biographer, investigated the voting in Chicago and "claimed to have discovered sufficient evidence of vote fraud to prove that the state was stolen for Kennedy."

A special prosecutor assigned to the case brought charges against 650 people, who were acquitted by a judge who was considered a "Daley machine loyalist." Three Chicago election workers were convicted of voter fraud in 1962 and served short terms in jail. Mazo, the Herald-Tribune reporter, later said that he "found names of the dead who had voted in Chicago, along with 56 people from one house." He found cases of Republican voter fraud in southern Illinois but said that the totals "did not match the Chicago fraud he found."

An academic study in 1985 later analyzed the ballots of two disputed precincts in Chicago which were subject to a recount. It found that while there was a pattern of miscounting votes to the advantage of Democratic candidates, Nixon suffered less than Republicans in other races, and the extrapolated error would have reduced his Illinois margin only from 8,858 votes, the final official total, to just under 8,000. It concluded there was insufficient evidence that he had been cheated out of winning Illinois.

Even if enough legitimate systemic fraud was discovered in Illinois to give Nixon the state, that alone would not have been enough to win him the presidency. Kennedy would've still been left with 276 electoral votes, seven more than what he needed to win the White House.

Recount

Ben Adamowski, a Republican who lost reelection as Cook County State's Attorney to Democratic nominee Daniel P. Ward, requested a recount of the state's attorney race. Republicans sought to use this recount, as they could not order a recount of the presidential results, to prove that fraud had been committed in the presidential election. Sidney Holzman, the chair of the Board of Election Commissioners, stated that only the three BEC members could handle the ballots and would only recount the ballots for the state's attorney election. Judge Thaddeus Adesko ruled that twenty-five teams of counters had to be used and that the other elections would be included in the recount.

The recount was finished on December 9, and showed that in six towns around Chicago, mistakes of ten votes or more in favor of Kennedy occurred in 3.1% of the precincts, those in favor of Nixon occurred in 2.6%, and those in favor of third-parties occurred in 4.8%. 11% of the precincts in Chicago had errors of ten votes or more in Kennedy's favor and 8.6% in Nixon's favor. Kennedy's vote was overcounted in 38% of Chicago's precincts while Nixon's vote was overcounted in 40%. Nixon's total was increased by 926 votes.

Republicans accused the election commission of manipulating the recount and Adamowski successfully sued for another recount in 1961, although only his election was recounted. The original recount increased his vote total by 9.073 while the second one increased his total by 12.694 per precinct.

See also

• United States presidential elections in Illinois

References

1. "United States Presidential election of 1960 - Encyclopædia Britannica". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
2. "1960 Election for the Forty-Fourth Term (1961-65)". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
3. "1960 Presidential General Election Results - Illinois". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
4. "The American Presidency Project - Election of 1960". Retrieved June 8, 2017.
5. ^ Illinois Blue Book 1959-1960. Illinois Secretary of State. p. 871. Retrieved March 31, 2020. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
6. ^ "OFFICIAL VOTE Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION NOVEMBER 4, 1986" (PDF). www.elections.il.gov. Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
7. ^ Illinois Blue Book 1961-1962. Illinois Secretary of State. p. 963. Retrieved March 31, 2020. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
8. ^ "OFFICIAL VOTE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION, NOVEMBER 8, 1960 JUDICIAL ELECTION 1959-1960 • PRIMARY ELECTION GENERAL PRIMARY, APRIL 12 1960" (PDF). Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
9. ^ Oliphant, Thomas; Wilkie, Curtis (2017). The road to Camelot: Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign. Simon & Schuster.
10. ^ "OFFICIAL VOTE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Cast at the GENERAL ELECTION, NOVEMBER 8, 1960 JUDICIAL ELECTION 1959-1960 • PRIMARY ELECTION GENERAL PRIMARY, APRIL 12 1960" (PDF). Illinois State Board of Elections. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
11. ^ "RESULTS OF 1960 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PRIMARIES". John F. Kennedy presidential library. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
12. ^ "The fallacy of Nixon's graceful exit". Salon. November 10, 2000. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
13. ^ Greenberg, David (October 16, 2000). "Was Nixon Robbed?". Slate.
14. ^ "Another Race To the Finish". The Washington Post. November 17, 2000. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
15. von Hippel, Paul (August 8, 2017). "Here's a voter fraud myth: Richard Daley 'stole' Illinois for John Kennedy in the 1960 election?". The Washington Post.
16. Kallina 1985.
17. Kallina 1985, p. 114–115.
18. Kallina 1985, p. 115–116.
19. Kallina 1985, p. 116–117.

Works cited

• Kallina, Edmund (1985). "Was the 1960 Presidential Election Stolen? The Case of Illinois". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 15 (1). Wiley-Blackwell: 113–118. JSTOR 27550168.

v t e State and district results of the 1960 United States presidential election
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• 1960 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Illinois
• 1960 Illinois elections
• Electoral fraud in the United States