Talk:List of Speaker of the United States House of Representatives elections

Incorporation into ordinal Congress articles

I disagree with putting election results for the Speakers' elections in the Ordinal Congress artticles, e.g., 113th United States Congress, as has recently been done (e.g., here at 113th Congress). Even extraordinary votes are rarely-if-ever included in these articles. Instead I suggest merely including a link such as: {{See also|List of Speaker of the United States House of Representatives elections}}. —GoldRingChip 12:58, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Election box templates

@Drdpw: I see I'd messed up the Election box templates. You reverted it anyway because you'd intentionally avoided using them. That's fine, but why not use them? —GoldRingChip 01:41, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. At first I only saw the "turnout" template, with its link to the Voter turnout article, but not one for total votes – only later did I notice the "total" template; I wanted one column for name (party–state) not separate party and name columns; and I also wanted an open (notes) template for additional information, which there is not. Drdpw (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Interesting… I see. Is there a way to use the templates but also keep the information you want? I don't see why it needs to be formatted differently. —GoldRingChip 04:20, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

@Drdpw: Do you have any further thoughts about using the Election box templates? —GoldRingChip 19:26, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@GoldRingChip: The Election box templates will work for the single ballot election tables, for both roll call vote and unanimous consent elections:

1936 election for speaker (special)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	William B. Bankhead (Alabama)	Voice	U C

1937 election for speaker

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	William B. Bankhead (Alabama) *	324	76.78
	Republican	Bertrand Snell (New York)	83	19.67
	Progressive	George J. Schneider (Wisconsin)	10	2.37
	Republican	Fred L. Crawford (Michigan)	2	0.47
	—	Present	3	0.71
Total votes			421	100
Votes necessary			211	>50

Though I prefer one column for "name (party – state)", that's simply a preference, and not a solid reason for objecting if you wish to move to using the EB templates. Note that I created Election box necessary templates for the election tables in this article (and for any election table to denote the number of votes that are required for a proposal to be adopted or a candidate to be elected). I also aligned the vote summary numbers to the left in order to separate them from the string of numbers above. Regarding the multi-ballot elections, as the first ballot and final ballot results are displayed in one election table, tweaking the existing tables would be the easiest route to go, unless special templates to accommodate such duplexing (along the lines of the "Election box open primary" & "Election box open primary general election" templates) were created.

Those are my thoughts about using the Election box templates. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 01:06, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Interesting. I see what you mean, and I think it's usable. The meta-value of the templates (especially here) is to standardize the format. You've put a tremendous amount of work into this article and it would be a shame to have to tweak the formats of dozens of elections each time you want to make a minor adjustment. That's why I think using the templates will help you with this neat project you've undertaken!

I've made some edits, just to show how I think the election box templates ought to work here:

1. Linked to state list articles
2. removed duplicative "|" at end of lines
3. spaced "|" at beginning of lines
4. capitalized "Speaker" and "Special"
5. changed the asterisk to "Inc." because the abbreviation doesn't work for all browsers so at least "inc." gives a visual hint to what it means
6. removed alignments

1936 election for Speaker (Special)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	William B. Bankhead (Alabama)	Voice	U C

1937 election for Speaker

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	William B. Bankhead (Alabama) (Inc.)	324	76.78
	Republican	Bertrand Snell (New York)	83	19.67
	Progressive	George J. Schneider (Wisconsin)	10	2.37
	Republican	Fred L. Crawford (Michigan)	2	0.47
	—	Present	3	0.71
Total votes			421	100
Votes necessary			211	>50

I agree with the single-column for "name (party – state)", also as a matter of my preference, too. I suppose a special template could be created to make that format.

I like the {{Election box necessary no change}} template. Is there nothing like that already?

What do you think? —GoldRingChip 13:21, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Partitions

Is there any value in using "85th through 90th congresses" and other such partitions? —GoldRingChip 21:29, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

The 85th-90th division exists because that's as far back as I went; once I got beyond the decade of my birth adding uneventful elections became tedious. That's why I've been focusing on the multi-ballot elections (which I've almost completed). I suppose there could be two divisions in the article … multi-ballot elections and single ballot elections (or three if the 3 voice vote elections were separated). What are your thoughts on the subject? Drdpw (talk) 15:10, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

That's probably the best way to go. I don't think there's much reason for divisions, but if divisions are used then they should be by a purpose, not an arbitrary decade. —GoldRingChip 18:09, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

47th United States Congress

The 47th United States Congress was nearly evenly split between Republicans and smaller parties. That is, the GOP had just less than 50% at the beginning of the first session, but maybe enough with others supporting it. I'm trying to locate the election results for that speaker race. Where might that be, please? —GoldRingChip 19:59, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

I will be adding the 1881 election for Speaker soon. The result was: Keifer – 148, Randall – 129, Ford – 8.13 Cong. Rec. 8–9 (1882) The speaker of the House of Representatives p.340 Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 20:33, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Ah! I see. Thanks! —GoldRingChip 21:13, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Chronological order

The partitions take them out of chronological order. I suggest putting them back in that order. —GoldRingChip 19:58, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

@GoldRingChip: I've been thinking about doing just that. Now that all but a few elections are included, the section divisions are no longer useful for navigation and are actually a hinderance given the disparity in size between the three: 14 / 3 / 100+. I will put the multi-ballot and voice vote elections into chronological order with the single ballot elections (some time next week). I do think section divisions would be helpful, and propose: Elections from 1789 to 1799 (6 elections), Elections from 1801 to 1899 (55 elections), Elections from 1901 to 1999 (54 elections), and Elections since 2001 (11 elections). Drdpw (talk) 21:29, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

The election for Speaker is in 12 days.

Exactly why was this deleteed? They said it was "speculation," but how? Pelosi and McCarthy have been unanimously been reelected to their positions, and the House has a Democratic majority. The two party leaders have ALWAYS been run for Speaker, going back to the 19th century. So to say that the two will NOT run for Speaker in a week and a half is what is rank speculationArglebargle79 (talk) 19:56, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Table worth including

I saw the note saying we only include the first and last ballots - is there a particular reason? I was going to swap out the existing table for this one:

Summary

  Democratic nominee who won the internal caucus vote

  Republican nominee who won the internal conference vote

  Other Republican nominees

  Persons receiving one or more votes without being formally nominated

Speaker ballot

Date	January 3			January 4			January 5					January 6
Ballot	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th	13th
Kevin McCarthy	203		202	201					200			213	214
Hakeem Jeffries	212											211	212
Jim Jordan	6	19	20									4	6
Byron Donalds	1			20			19	17		13	12
Andy Biggs	10
Kevin Hern								2	3	7		3
Donald Trump							1				1
Jim Banks	1
Lee Zeldin	1
Total	434			433					432			431	432
Present				1
Not voting									1			3	2
Majority	218			217								216	217

This table is a nicely condensed way of showing all the ballots, and assuming we stay under 20 or so (as looks likely), should continue to work. Thoughts? —Ganesha811 (talk) 01:56, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Party ID

1825 Mr. Campbell was really more a Jacksonian than an Adams' representative. Gevan (talk) 22:27, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of all multiple ballot Speaker elections candidates in text and with footnotes

@Drdpw: Just because every multiple ballot Speaker election does not feature the inclusion of candidates receiving votes on intermediate ballots in the text and with a footnote (rather than expanding the election outcome template to include each ballot) does not mean that they should be excluded from coverage in the text of any one multiple ballot election in particular. I was planning on expanding all of the multiple ballot Speaker elections to feature all candidates that received votes on intermediate ballots in the text and with a footnote, as well as looking up all candidates listed as "Others" and expanding the election outcome template to at least include them (as I had done for the 1861 Speaker election), since it is unclear to me why candidates that received votes in an election should be entirely excluded from coverage in the article and in an unobtrusive style (as well as to try to resolve our other dispute). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 17:32, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I have no problem with listing vote recipients individually who are presently clustered together as "Others" in the various election tables. Regarding expanding all of the multi-ballot election sections to feature all candidates that receive votes on intermediate ballots in the text and with a footnote, I suggest that you open an RFC first, to build a consensus for doing so and, if so, how. Drdpw (talk) 18:33, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you help me open an RFC? I'm not familiar with the process for doing so. I've come up with a template and generic wording for the footnotes. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 18:17, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

1971 election

Anyone know why the 1971 election didn't happen until January 21st? The section starts with "An election for speaker took place on January 21, 1971, on the opening day of the 92nd Congress," but I'm pretty sure that's just cut and paste boilerplate -- the Congress's first session constitutionally would've happened on January 3rd. The date is correct -- see for instance this document from the Congressional Research Service, which also doesn't explain the why. Jfruh (talk) 18:06, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Could not find why the House did not convene until January 21st in 1971. It appears that the Senate did not convene until January 18. Perhaps that sentence needs some tweaking. Drdpw (talk) 19:36, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

the caucus voted for Pelosi 15–43?

@Reywas92: I read, "The Democratic Caucus held their vote on November 30, 2016. After a motion to postpone the election until December 8 was defeated 68–129, the caucus voted for Pelosi 15–43." That confuses me: If the Democratic Caucus voted 68-129 to defeat a motion to postpone the election with a total of 197 votes cast, how could that same caucus then cast only a total of 58 votes to elect Pelosi, with less than 30% of the total votes cast for speaker than were cast for the motion to postpone just a few moments earlier? Let me guess: Should that have been, "the caucus voted for Pelosi 154-43"? I found the number 43 in the reference cited but not 154 in the reference cited. I've made that change. If that's not correct, please fix. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:09, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

@Reywas92: I reverted some of the details you added to the 2011 election section, details beyond the limited content scope of this article. Drdpw (talk) 22:59, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry yes, that was a typo that should have read 150–43 per [1]. I'm not sure why the nomination vote should be excluded from this though. Reywas92^Talk 04:18, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

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Adding members who vote against their parties nominee

I boldly added a collapsed table to every post 1995 Speaker election with the members who voted against their parties nominee. It was reverted by User:Drdpw as trivia. I disagree and believe it's notable information to include. You can see how it looks here (excuse my poor attempt at a joke). Does anyone have any thoughts on whether its worth including? Esolo5002 (talk) 04:37, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Can you expound upon why you feel it is notable, especially on a roundup page like this one. I can see a stronger case for including something like this on the election-specific page, but even there it only seems to rise to non-trivial when those defections make a difference in the outcome of the election. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 13:55, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

More than trivial because it seems like when a member votes against their nominee it makes news. See [2], [3] and [4], just as a few examples. While obviously the recent rebellion remains fresh, these rebellions are notable too. Esolo5002 (talk) 21:51, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Such detailed information is included in election-specific pages. There, the details are pertinent, and to the point of the article's subject. However, this stand-alone list is simply a series of election "box scores," along with a with very brief background statement for each table. Here the information you wish to add is trivial, trivial in the sense of being tangential information that gives undue weight/balance to a minor aspect of the list's subject. Now when members voting against their parties nominee makes a difference in the outcome of an election, that detail merits mention, and is noted in the background narrative. The subject is covered, in a balanced way. Drdpw (talk) 23:25, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this information best kept on the pages for individual elections. This is already a pretty huge list, no need to add extraneous information to the entries for individual elections when we have links to the more detailed pages right there. --Jfruh (talk) 16:14, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

That's my take too. It's fine information for the election article, but trivial for the list of elections article. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 16:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)