Page:The Iowa journal of history and politics, v. II.pdf/45

Rh numbers of voters that has taken place in the last century is ascribable to the popularization of the suffrage, to the wider interest in politics now taken by the electorate, to the improved facilities for getting to and from the polls, and the large increase in the number of the polling places.

Additional light on the vote in the first congressional election is cast by statistics of other elections occurring about the same time. The electoral vote in New Hampshire in 1788 was 4,028, or 2.8 per cent of the State's free population. In Madison's electoral district the number of voters was 1,290 which number is 2.7 per cent of 47,00, the total white population of the district. The vote in Pennsylvania for delegates to the convention which adopted the Constitution was 3 per cent of the free population; that in a State election of 1790, 6.9 per cent. Princess Anne county, Virginia, in the congressional election, (the one whose vote we are trying to ascertain) January, 1789, cast 272 votes, which number is 6 per cent of the total white inhabitants of the county. The vote for the Governor of New York in 1789 was 3.9 per cent of the free population of the State; at the same election in New York city the ratio was 9.4. During the years, 1780-1789, 3 per cent of Massachusetts' population voted in the State elections. From these figures the total vote in the first congressional election may be estimated at from 75,000 to 125,000, or from three to three and one-half per cent of the free population, (3,200,00).