Wisconsin’s First, Rather Informal, Election Was Held In 1836

Wisconsinites head to the polls this week to cast their ballots for president, among other offices.

Wisconsin’s first election was in 1836, just a few months after officially becoming a territory. It was a presidential election year, but as a territory, Wisconsin wasn’t eligible to vote in federal elections.

Territorial Wisconsin was much bigger than the present day state, encompassing all of what today is Iowa, Minnesota, and half of the Dakotas.

President Andrew Jackson appointed Henry Dodge governor and charged him with holding elections, convening a legislature and conducting a census to identify voter, for example, white men.

Dodge played a prominent part in the Black Hawk War of 1832.

The census ordered by Dodge covered only Iowa and Wisconsin. That’s where most of the population lived, but it was also understood the rest of the land was only temporarily attached to the Wisconsin territory.

Sheriffs did most of the accounting and were asked to record the names of the heads of white families and the number of people in each family. Some of the “families” were unbelievably large. Fur trader John P. Arndt had a family of 74, which likely included his far flung crew of clerks and voyageurs. Some boarding houses listed all residents as belonging to the same “family.”

The census identified 11,683 eligible voters.

Dodge then authorized local officials to hold elections for delegates to a territorial convention to be held in Belmont in the late fall of 1836. The elections were informal and the voters and candidates usually knew each other personally. Twenty men were elected to represent the entire territory.

Wisconsinites voted in their first presidential race in 1848, soon after becoming a state. Wisconsin’s four electoral votes went to Democrat Lewis Cass, former governor of Michigan and secretary of war under Andrew Jackson. But the race went to his rival, Whig candidate Zachary Taylor, who had served as an officer at three Wisconsin territorial forts from 1817 to 1836.