County Unit SystemThe County Unit System was used by Georgia to determine victors in its primary elections. The system was established in 1917 when the Georgia legislature, overwhelmingly dominated by the Democratic Party, passed the Neill Primary Act. This act formalized what had operated as an informal system, instituted in Georgia in 1898, of allotting votes by county in party primary elections. The county unit system continued to be used in Democratic primaries for statewide office and selected U.S. House districts until the early 1960s. Each county was given a certain number of votes and the candidate who received the highest number of votes in that county won all the "unit votes," under a form of block voting. A candidate had to have a majority of county unit votes to win and if no candidate received a majority, then a run-off election would be held between the top two finishers. There were 410 County unit votes. The eight most populous counties had six unit votes each (a total of 48), the next 30 most populous counties had four votes each (a total of 120) and the remaining 121 counties had two votes each (a total of 242). The counties with two votes therefore had a majority of the votes, despite only making up one-third of the population in 1962 when the system was abolished by the courts. Eugene Talmadge's 1946 primary victory was due to the Unit system. Talmadge lost to James V. Carmichael by 16,000 votes but won the election since he received 244 county unit votes, as opposed to 144 for Carmichael. In 1963, the county unit system was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in its Gray v. Sanders decision. The Supreme Court found that the system violated the "one man, one vote" principle.
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Georgia County
Clerks Association P.O. Box 1349 Valdosta, GA 31601 229-671-2400 |