The 1946 Georgia gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 1946, in order to elect the governor of Georgia.
Incumbent Democratic governor Ellis Arnall was term-limited, and ineligible to run for a second term before spending four years out of office (thus in 1950).
As was common at the time, the Democratic candidate ran with only token opposition in the general election so therefore the Democratic primary was the real contest, and winning the primary was considered tantamount to election. The Republican Party was utterly unviable in Georgia at the time, and had not even nominated a candidate of its own.
The election was won by the Democratic nominee and former governor Eugene Talmadge, who died weeks later in mid-December, before his scheduled inauguration in January 1947. Talmadge's death created the three governors controversy in Georgia.
Democratic primary
The Democratic primary election was held on July 17, 1946. As Talmadge won a majority of county unit votes, there was no run-off.
County unit system
From 1917 until 1962, the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Georgia used a voting system called the county unit system to determine victors in statewide primary elections.
The system was ostensibly designed to function similarly to the Electoral 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.
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 a winner-take-all basis.
Candidates were required to obtain a majority 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, a runoff election was held between the top two candidates to determine a winner.
Candidates
- James V. Carmichael, businessman and former state representative
- Hoke O'Kelley, businessman
- Eurith D. Rivers, former governor
- Eugene Talmadge, former governor
General election
In the general election, Talmadge faced token opposition.
However, from October 3, Talmadge began to suffer from stomach hemorrhages and was unable to attend the state convention in October in Macon.
The 1945 state constitution required a candidate receive a majority of votes to be elected governor; if no one had a majority, the General Assembly was to hold a contingent election between the top two candidates "who shall be in life, and shall not decline an election". Talmadge supporters believed this would require the General Assembly to choose between the second- and third-placed candidates in case of his death, and thus prepared by organizing enough write-in votes to ensure his son Herman Talmadge would take part.
Results
D. Talmadge Bowers was a Republican.
Aftermath
On December 21, 1946, Talmadge died before taking office. The state constitution did not specify who would assume the governorship in such a situation, so three men made claims to the governorship: Ellis Arnall, the outgoing governor; Melvin E. Thompson, the lieutenant governor-elect; and Herman Talmadge, Eugene Talmadge's son.
The General Assembly met to certify the election on January 14, 1947. When the returns were first opened, Republican write-in Talmadge Bowers was second, with James Carmichael third and Herman Talmadge fourth. However, additional write-in votes were discovered for Herman Talmadge from his home county of Telfair, probably the result of electoral fraud, and in the official results he was second.
The General Assembly then declined to certify Eugene Talmadge as the winner, instead resolving that "no person had a majority of the whole number of votes" because of his death. It immediately proceeded to the contingent election between the top two living candidates. Carmichael declined to participate; Talmadge opponents voted present out of protest.
Thompson appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The court ruled in March 1947 that Eugene Talmadge's death did not change the fact that a majority of votes had been cast for him, and the General Assembly had violated the constitution by resolving there was no majority. It defined the General Assembly's role in certification as purely ministerial, and held that the constitution did not allow it any discretion in the process, including considering the death of a candidate.
Ironically, the court then resolved the initial controversy of who should have been governor after certification in favor of Ellis Arnall; since the constitution defined the gubernatorial term as four years but stipulated it does not expire until a successor is "chosen and qualified", and a dead person is not qualified, the court held Arnall should have continued serving as governor. However, he had voluntarily resigned any claim to the office on January 18 to make way for Thompson. At that point, the court held, power devolved on the duly elected lieutenant governor.
In a 1985 interview, Arnall admitted he shared the interpretation that he could continue in office for up to another full term, but had little interest in doing so. Before he resigned, wanting to avoid "plung[ing] the state into a banana republic war", he first contacted an unnamed Supreme Court justice to ensure the court was likely to rule against the legislature, and thus would find his resignation would transfer power to Thompson.
The constitution required a special election to complete the 1947–1951 gubernatorial term "at the next general election for members of the General Assembly", which was in November 1948.