Presidential Elections 1956 and 2024
November 5, 2024 was the presidential election. The ballot you cast did not look like the ballot in 1956.
Pictured is the oversize single-sided presidential election ballot used November 6, 1956. There were three parties, Republican, Democratic and Prohibition. You also voted for state, county and congressional representatives. That was it.
In 2024, you have a two-sided ballot with seven parties, Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green Party, U.S. Taxpayer, Natural Law and Unaffiliated. State and local officials are also on the ballot including a non-partisan section.
Today, paper ballots are fed into a digital counting machine. Back in 1956, they were folded and dropped into a locked ballot box and counted after the polls closed. There was no mail-in or early voting.
The winner of the 1956 election was Dwight D. Eisenhower with Richard Nixon as vice president winning 41 of 48 states.
There have been only been three other landslide elections:
Lyndon Johnson 1964 (44 of 50);
Richard Nixon 1972 (49 of 50);
Ronald Regan 1980 (47 of 50);
Ronald Regan 1984 (49 of 50).
Since 1961, Washington D.C. does have three electoral votes, yet no Republican candidate has ever won the D.C. vote.
