Talk:List of special elections to the United States House of Representatives

Complete
The following Congresses are complete:

103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110

—Markles 18:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Complete, but needing verification
Once verified, these should be moved up:

90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, and 102. -- Esprqii (talk) 17:32, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think I have completed all the special elections for Congresses 1 to 3. --Gary J 15:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yesterday, Wed. 11 Mar. 2015, I was using the List of United States Congresses to see who succeeded the late 19th century and early 20th century Representatives from Tennessee and Ohio who did not complete their terms. I think I came across three cases in which the from/until dates were either missing or in disagreement with Congress' BioGuide. Since my experience has taught me that the BioGuide also has its fair share of errors, I cross-referenced with OurCampaigns before updating. I then made the same corrections in the tables at the bottoms of the applicable pages, and seeing the link there to this list I figured I should do so here as well. While doing so I became aware that data for some Special Elections were missing. Then while taking care of that it became clear that it was more than a few. To make a long story... oops, too late for that I guess. Anyway, over the next several hours I had added lines for about 44 missing elections that took place in Ohio. Then I moved on to Oklahoma but found only five that weren't already there. So then I skimmed the list for what appeared to be an unusually low number of elections and stopped at Washington, which had two. However, I found only two more for Washington.

I'm willing to donate more time to continue what I was doing yesterday, but I would very much prefer to make that time as efficient as I can by dealing with more "Ohios" and fewer "Oklahomas & Washingtons". So if any of you would direct me to the states or time periods requiring the most attention, I'll start there. I see that y'all have been progressing in reverse chronological order from the present, but I found my progress to be comfortably rapid when I went state to state and district to district scanning for Special Elections at OurCampaigns.com.

HankW512 (talk) 15:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

United States House of Representatives, New Jersey District 13
Will there be a special election to replace Bob Menendez in the NJ-13? --Blue387 23:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * No. Governor Corzine announced on January 28, 2006 that there would be no special election for Menendez's former seat. .  Thus, the seat will remain vacant until the next  Congress convenes on January 3 2007.&mdash;Mark Adler (markles)  05:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * If past practice is followed there will be 2 elections in November one for the full term and one to fill the remainder of the current term (less than 2 months at that point) which will give the new member an edge in seniority. NoSeptember   talk  12:29, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you tell me about a past elections which did this?&mdash;Markles 21:45, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Found one, November, 1990, Rob Andrews won special and general election. (Florio had resigned to become govenor). And Sires's site (who is running in the NJ 13 election), says it happened twice earlier, Pallone in '88 and Saxton in '84. It looks like NJ state law has more flexibility then other states, allowing special elections to be delayed until November, when other states would require them sooner. Simon12 06:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

History
This is an excellent article. We just need to add some more history of special elections going back as far as possible. When we do so, I would then reverse the chronological order (the most recent on top). NoSeptember  talk  12:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Foley/Ney
There is no special election being held for Foley's seat. . And while I don't have a source for Ney's seat, there is no way they could set up the election with 4 days notice. Unless someone has a source saying otherwise, we should assume no special election for Ney's seat.Simon12 16:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Senate Special Elections
It doesn't look like there's an article for Senate Special Elections. Should it get its own article, are should we expand this one to cover the Senate also? Simon12 04:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it's a good idea. Go for it! --Sprkee 05:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Which one is a good idea? Simon12 11:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant that I thought it should have its own article. This one is going to get pretty long as it is.--Sprkee 18:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Article size

 * This page is starting to get pretty large. Any ideas or other models on how to break it up effectively? --Sprkee 05:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Party column
Since we are using the party colors, the "Party" columns are sort of redundant. It would save time and space if we eliminated them, and just add the "Party Shading Key" template to the bottom of the page. How does that sound? --Sprkee 21:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm OK either way. Simon12 23:23, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Nope. Gotta leave the words for the sake of accessibility to color-blind readers.  That's Wikipedia policy.  —Markles 01:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, then how about using the style of the "United States Congressional Delegations from (State)" articles where we use the initial; e.g.:


 * {| class=wikitable

! District !! Date of election ↑ !! Incumbent !! Winner
 * Pennsylvania's 2nd congressional district
 * January 18, 1944
 * | James P. McGranery (D)
 * | Joseph M. Pratt (R)
 * }
 * --Sprkee 06:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That looks a lot better to me than what the article currently has. Much more legible. Qqqqqq 16:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * A good solution! I made the change. —Markles 20:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks great! --Sprkee 20:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks great! --Sprkee 20:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"Incumbent"
The word "incumbent" is used to describe the current holder of an office. But in every case on this page, the person listed as the "incumbent" is not the current office holder. The person has either died or resigned. Is there another term we could use? "Previous representative" would be more accurate. Any other suggestions? --Sprkee 16:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that "incumbent" is not the right word. I don't know if there's a better word, and I'd welcome one if there is.—Markles 17:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've changed it now to "predecessor." —Markles 20:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I like it! --Sprkee 20:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Date of election/installation
I like having big sortable tables, but I don't think we need to have "Date of Election Known" and a "Date of Election Unknown" tables. It looks like it was the 57th Congress (1901-1903) that Congressional record-keepers committed to keeping track of election dates as well as dates of seating. Perhaps this was due to the difficulty of travel in those days. In any case, I think the tables are going to end up being de facto sorted into two date groupings. Perhaps it would be better to have one table and label it "Date" with a footnote stating that dates prior to 1901 are for the date of seating rather the election date itself. I see there is some overlap, but not much. --Sprkee 22:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Go for it. Fix it any way you can. The two sections look stupid — and I created them!—Markles 22:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sortable
Why aren't most of the columns sortable?—Markles 15:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The columns all seem to be sortable, but this is not very useful for many of them. Presumably to sort election dates usefully it would be necessary to use a consistent syntax like yyyy/mm/dd (1789/03/04 for example). To sort names usefully, the surname would have to be given first (Smith, John before Smith, Joseph). This would make it more difficult to do links to articles. Alternatively is there a better way to produce sortable lists that work. --Gary J 13:11, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * But when I click on the sorting for the "Winner" column, it starts: Glen Browder, Don Young, Mo Udall. What order is that??—Markles 13:45, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to sort "Winner" and I get alphabetical order. --Gary J 15:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Huh! Well… that's interesting.  I wonder if it's some problem with my monobook or something else.  I'll look into it.—Markles 17:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I figured it out! It's my browser.  Sortable tables don't work right in Safari versions 1 & 2.  I don't know about Safari 3 which is still in Beta.  Here's the explanation: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Sorting?oldid=606880. —Markles 20:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Split the list?
I am concerned that this list is getting a bit long for one article. The more early elections I put in the worse this problem will get.

I see the lists of by-elections for the UK House of Commons are split by date, so the multi-article format seems to work reasonably well. See List of United Kingdom by-elections, List of United Kingdom by-elections (1950–1979) and the earlier articles referred to in the category of By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

I have set up an article Summary of special elections to the United States House of Representatives by Congress. When this is finished a view can be taken of how many special elections would fit conveniently into each article. --Gary J 13:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have now completed the summary article. There have been 1,428 House special elections (to August 21, 2007). I see the 1950-1979 article I mentioned above, contains entries for 380 by-elections. If we use that as a rough guideline to how large a single article of this type should be then this is the sort of split I suggest.


 * 1st-26th Congresses (1789-1841) 372 special elections.
 * 27th-56th Congresses (1841-1901) 378 special elections.
 * 57th-77th Congresses (1901-1943) 371 special elections.
 * 78th-110th Congresses (1943-2009) 307 special elections.

--Gary J 15:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have set up List of special elections to the United States House of Representatives (1st to 26th Congresses; 1789-1841). I have probably not set this up in the proper way, but I have not managed to locate the instructions for how you split up pages. I have not deleted anything from the older list yet. If necessary to comply with guidelines I can re-do the new article.


 * I have split the new list article by Congress. I feel that is more useful to the reader trying to find something in the article, than one big sortable list. --Gary J 16:39, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Single list
I have put the list back into a single section, so that sorting will work. I know this makes the list long, but iit's the best way to handle sorting, and otherwise it's just split in arbitrary sections. —GoldRingChip 17:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Merge
I suggest merging List of special elections to the United States House of Representatives (1st to 26th Congresses; 1789-1841) into List of special elections to the United States House of Representatives. 1841 is an arbitrary cut-off date. The list won't be too long together. It's OK to have a list that's unusually long anyway.—Markles 18:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely agree. — Nightstallion 10:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed Gang14 (talk) 14:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

OH-11
Marcia Fudge won the primary, and is unopposed in the Special Election. Can this information somehow be included in the table? Maybe a footnote next to "not yet elected"? Simon12 (talk) 03:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Patience is a virtue. When she wins the elction then she will have won the elction... not before.--Dr who1975 (talk) 03:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion regarding naming of elections for specific single seats
This is just a suggestion that I would like regarding the naming of elections for single specific seats in the House of Representatives. Under the current guidelines, the name of an election for a specific seat in the House for example is named Arizona's 1st congressional district election, 2006 (and in the case of special elections the word 'special' is simply added prior to the word 'election'). I would prefer that the names for specific seats be named something like "United States House of Representatives election in Arizona's 1st congressional district, 2006". When I created United States House of Representatives elections in South Dakota, 2004, I came across this dilemma regarding the naming of such articles (which I resolved in this case by combining information regarding the special election and General election into one article). Under the current format, if I were to have created two seperate articles for the special and general elections, the former would have been named "South Dakota's At-large congressional district special election, 2004" and the later as "United States House of Representatives election in South Dakota, 2004". I believe that naming articles as "United States House of Representatives (special (in cases of special elections)) election in [State]'s [number] congressional district, [year]" fashion would be more accurate than the current format of "[State]'s [number] congressional district (special) election, [year]" since it emphasizes the fact that it is a federal election in a district for the U.S. House and not as a state election which the current format somewhat misleading portrays it as. I also favor changing the naming format considering that specific elections for the U.S. Senate are titled "United States Senate election (special) in [state], [year]" (I admit that the last example may not have been a perfect comparison, but I do hope that I got my point across) Fuelsaver (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Links to special elections
As it is right now, there's no easy way to tell whether there's a page for specific elections. For example, among the 112th Congress, Kentucky 4 links to Kentucky's 4th congressional district, but Washington 1 links to Washington's 1st congressional district special election, 2012. I'd suggest placing links to special elections articles themselves separately so that you can tell at a glance whether there's an article available for that specific special election, perhaps placing the link on the date so that, for example, the bottom of the table would look like this:

That way you can see that there's no article for Kentucky's 4th district. This would be especially useful for earlier congresses where articles for special elections are less common XinaNicole (talk) 05:18, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Since no one objected, I went ahead and did that. It makes it more consistent with articles such as List of special elections to the United States Senate as well as the Congress-specific list of special elections articles XinaNicole (talk) 02:31, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Nice. Perhaps the date column should be moved to the left end, because that's what's sorting the list?—GoldRingChip  03:32, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I like the change too, and agree with the comment about moving the date column to the left. --Esprqii (talk) 19:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Conflicting Reports
When Congress' BioGuide and OurCampaigns.com disagree, which should I trust? For example, did Alexander Thomson take office as U.S. Representative for the 13th CD of PA on 1824-1204 or 1824-1206? I know from experience that the BioGuide has many errors, but I don't feel that my experience with OurCampaigns is extensive enough for me to state with confidence that they are the more trustworthy of the two. I suspect it's possible that the disagreement stems from the fact that the 6th was a Monday. If the date were within the past half-century, I might consider that a reasonable argument, but I have no reason to believe that Mr. Thomson did not take office on a Saturday in 1824. It's far more likely, however, that it's because the 18th Congress convened its second session on 1824-1206. I've seen many examples in which the start date is the first day of the next session of Congress, when the election winners are sworn in and seated. Such is the norm in the PDF list from Congress of all Representatives and Senators from 1789 to 2005. But don't Members of Congress have obligations outside the Capitol Building, like helping constituents at the home office? Again, this is only an example. On the other side of the coin is the example of Connecticut, who for a long time held their Congressional General Elections in April, the month after the beginning of the term to which candidates were being elected, which suggests the start date is not important as long as Congress is not in session.

Another common source of disagreement is when a special election is held while Congress is in session, Congress normally has the date of the election as the start date whereas OurCampaigns shows the following business day. It seems silly to me to think the date of the election could be considered the start date. Even today, a half-century into the computer age, not all precincts report in before the end of the day. Besides, even if a candidate lived next door to the Capitol, surely they would allow him/her to take a nap before checking in.

Does anyone know of another source of reasonably accurate and reasonably thorough congressional election data that costs no more than what I'm getting paid for this (-0-)?

HankW512 (talk) 10:30, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Winner "Vacant"?
The article includes a few entries like this:

How can the winner of a special election be "vacant"? If the states where these deaths or resignations didn't hold special elections and just left the seat vacant until the next regular election for the following Congressional term, then these entries shouldn't be in a "List of special elections to the United States House of Representatives". --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

General Election elections
Why does this list contain elections held on a general election day? A special election specifically relates to an election that takes place on any date that is NOT a general election date (as set by congress) regardless of the underlying circumstances. Just because a seat is vacant does not mean it's a special election. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.150.184.160 (talk) 18:19, 27 March 2017 (UTC) Sometimes a state or district has a regular election and a special election on the same day. This happened in 2018 in Michigan's District 13. Democrat John Conyers resigned. Democrat Brenda Jones won a special election on Election Day and served from November 29, 2018 through January 3, 2019. Democrat Rashida Tlaib won the regular election and served starting on January 3, 2019. Another example is the Senate seat that President Obama resigned from. In 2010, Illinois had two elections on Election Day, a special election to finish the term ending on January 3, 2011, and a regular election for the next term. Republican Mark Kirk won both. If an election wouldn't have happened without a vacancy, it should be called special regardless of when it was. EvanJ35 (talk) 17:26, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

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It Should Say the Amount in the List
The list says it is incomplete, but I wish it said how many were listed. If I counted correctly, it has 928. Furthermore, I do not expect other people to agree with me about this, but I think the table that says how many there were in each Congress should add a column to state how many of them are in the table. That would make it easier to tell if the elections not in the table are scattered through history, or if older elections are more likely to not be in the tabl. EvanJ35 (talk) 17:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC)