Result of US presidential election confirmed

Washington DC, 11 November 1916 - Woodrow Wilson has been re-elected as President of the United States.

The final total of votes is not complete, but Wilson has passed the majority needed to claim victory by a narrow margin.

The small gap between Wilson – the Democratic candidate – and his Republican opponent Charles Evans Hughes has led to calls for a recount.  There have been bitter disputes in several states where the contest was extremely tight over the validity of certain ballot papers.

The winner has yet to be congratulated by his opponent who has yet to formally concede. Indeed, early reports from across America had initially suggested that Hughes was likely to be elected.

Woodrow Wilson (left), Charles Evans (centre) and Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to be elected to Congress. (Images: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA)

The key constituency in the election was California, where Wilson’s narrow success was enough to tip the scales in his favour. Early results also suggest that the Democrats will keep control of the Senate by a comfortable margin and will also be the largest party in Congress, even if they will not hold an absolute majority in the lower house.

A landmark moment also saw the election of the first female member of Congress, with Jeannette Rankin returned in Montana. In general, a key factor in deciding the outcome of the election was the expansion of the franchise among women with just over one-eighth of voters now female.

It is considered that the desire of women to keep their sons out of the war was central to their decision to vote for Woodrow Wilson who campaigned on a ticket of remaining neutral in the Great War.

In a cartoon by satirical American magazine Puck Charles Evan Hughes points out the smudge on Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy record. (Image: Puck, 16 September 1916, University of Michigan)

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]