At a special judicial election on June 7, 1847, four judges of the
New York Court of Appeals, the
Clerk of the Court of Appeals, 32 justices of the new
New York Supreme Court district benches, county judges,
surrogates, districty attorneys and all other judicial officers in the state of
New York were elected, to take office on July 5, 1847.
Background
The
New York State Constitution
The Constitution of the State of New York establishes the structure of the government of the State of New York, and enumerates the basic rights of the citizens of New York. Like most state constitutions in the United States, New York's constituti ...
of 1846 re-organized the State's judicial system and created the Court of Appeals. Four of the judges were elected statewide, the other four were chosen by a rotative system from the
New York Supreme Court district benches.
The Whig state convention met on May 19 at
Syracuse, New York, and nominated Whittlesey, Noxon, Reynolds and David Lord. Lord declined the nomination, and Jordan was substituted on the ticket.
Results
The votes are the total of Democratic and Anti-Rent votes for Gardiner and Bronson, and the total of Whig and Anti-Rent votes for Jordan, Whittlesey and Lamport. The Anti-Rent endorsement did not influence the result of this election.
The official result did not count the votes from
Hamilton County, which were not returned, and 1,011 votes for Whittlesey in
Herkimer County
Herkimer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 60,139. Its county seat is Herkimer. The county was created in 1791 north of the Mohawk River out of part of Montgomery County. It is named af ...
, which were cast for "Frederick W. Whittlesey".
[At the time ballots with the name of the candidate were cast. It happened sometimes that the local party organization had ballots printed with spelling mistakes or wrong middle initials. Most election inspectors counted the votes only if the ballots showed a perfect match of the candidate's name, and listed variant spellings as "scattering votes"; see also New York state election, 1851#Contested election]
The whole Democratic ticket was elected. Those elected were then classified by drawing lots on June 22. Jewett drew the two-year term, Bronson the four-year term, Ruggles the six-year term, and Gardiner the eight-year term. The half year remaining in 1847 was added to these terms, and afterwards every two years in odd-numbered years one judge was elected to an eight-year term.
Notes
Sources
*Judges of the Court of Appeals a
Court History New York
*Results
''The Whig Almanac and United States Register 1848''
{{New York state elections
New York state elections, 1847 J
1847 New York (state) elections
New York (state) judicial elections
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