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What is the earliest political vote where we have the exact details of the specific numbers of votes and the names of the candidates?

The "candidates" could be persons, teams, policies, decisions, or any political items.

As a preliminary research, Roman Republic has a senate of 300 voters in 509BC. They did voice votes or a show of hands, which is exactly the kind of event I am looking for. However, I find no sources with the exact number of votes recorded for any decision.

This link from Spencer recorded three events of voting in Holy Roman Empire. In all of these events, the voters unanimously vote for one candidate.

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    Shockingly this is the oldest I've found so far (1757). I can't even find, for example, how many votes Peter De La Mare received for the first speakership of Parliament, nevermind anything from Ancient Rome or Greece. I'm sure someone else will do better than this?
    – Brian Z
    Commented Feb 4 at 13:48
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    This is a good question. Elections to Westminster had poll books until mid 19th century, so the votes were recorded by name of candidate and voter. And we know the total number of MPs for each party - however loosely defined - going back to the 1660s. So in principle, totally answerable.
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Feb 4 at 15:35
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    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
    – Spencer
    Commented Feb 5 at 23:41
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    Technically, we have details for some Roman elections in which voting was by century or tribe. We know that so-and-so won 18 of the 22 tribes, etc. (I don't care enough about this bit of nitpicking to actually look any up...)
    – Mark Olson
    Commented Feb 6 at 19:40
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    What we don't know, of course, is the vote counts within each tribe or century which determined where the tribal or centuriate vote would go -- which is why I called my answer more of a nit than anything, answering the letter of your question, while, perhaps, avoiding the meat of it.
    – Mark Olson
    Commented Feb 8 at 0:21

2 Answers 2

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not claiming this is the first ever, but setting a milestone

Election of Innocent III, January 8th, 1198

After the third council of Lateran in 1179, popes were elected by a colleges of cardinals who each had the same rights.

The very day of the death of Pope Celestine III on January 8th, 1198, exactly 21 Cardinals (out of 29 in the Sacred College, the 8 others being away from Rome) assembled to elect his successor.

In the first round, Cardinal Giovanni di Salerno came first with ten votes (in front of Ottaviano di Paoli, 3 votes), but he said he wouldn't accept the papacy.

In the second scrutiny, all Cardinals voted for the youngest among them, Cardinal Lotario dei Conti di Segni, who became Pope Innocent III

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What is the earliest political vote where we have the exact details of the specific numbers of votes and the names of the candidates?

This could be the election of Lucius III.

There were probably 27 cardinals in the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1181. Based on the examination of the subscriptions of the papal bulls in 1181 and the available data about the external missions of the cardinals it is possible to establish that no more than 19 cardinals participated in the election.

As early as 1179, from the 3rd Council of the Lateran, every pope had to be selected from the College of Cardinals, the group casting the votes at the conclave. The number of Cardinals can be different each time, but is known in advance (answering your "specific numbers of votes" question). As low as 7 in under Pope Alexander IV (1254–1261) or Pope John XXI (1276–1277). As high as 1371. Only cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote in a conclave. They are known as the cardinal electors, and their number is limited to 120. The maximum number of eligible electors has been 131 in 20242.

A two-thirds supermajority vote is required to elect the new pope. This requirement has varied since then, depending on whether the winning candidate was allowed to vote for himself, in which cases the required majority was two-thirds plus one vote.3

There are no evidence that the names of the likely candidates only have been effectively recorded. Because of the voting system, each Cardinal can be elected. We can say that there are as many candidates as there are voters, so we know who they are, answering your "names of the candidates" question.

1. wikipedia Maximum number of electors

2. wikipedia College of Cardinals

3. wikipedia Papal conclave

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  • Do we know how many of these 19 cardinals did vote for Lucius III ?
    – Evargalo
    Commented Feb 9 at 8:32
  • It is said to be unanimous. It might be possible to know, reading the names and signatures but the votes are anonymous.
    – OldPadawan
    Commented Feb 9 at 9:02
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    May downvoter explain what could improve that answer?
    – OldPadawan
    Commented Feb 9 at 11:58

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