Comparative Data on Missouri Conventions | The Missouri State Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse

Comparative Data on Missouri Constitutional Conventions

Referendum on Whether to Call a Convention

Vote Year	Vote Date	Election Type	Yes #	No #	Total Vote #	Yes %	No %	Called?	Registered Voters # *	Turnout %
2022	11/8/2022	General	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.	N.A.
2002	11/4/2002	General	569,598	1,079,085	1,648,683	34.55%	65.45%	No	?	?
1982	11/2/1982	General	406,446	927,056	1,333,502	30.48%	69.52%	No	?	?
1962	11/6/1962	General	295,972	519,499	519,499	36.29%	63.71%	No	?	?
1942	11/3/1942	General	366,018	265,294	631,312	57.98%	42.02%	Yes	N.A.	N.A.
1921	8/2/1921	Special	175,353	127,130	302,483	57.97%	42.03%	Yes	N.A.	N.A.
1874	11/3/1874	General	111,299	111,016	222,315	50.06%	49.94%	Yes	N.A.	N.A.
1864	11/8/1864	General	?	?	?	?	?	Yes	N.A.	N.A.
1844	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	Yes	N.A.	N.A.
1835**	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	No	N.A.	N.A.

Note: There was no referendum on whether to call a convention for the 1820 and 1861-3 so-called “constitutional conventions.”

* Voter registration did not exist at all during much of the 19th Century and was not implemented for 100% of the population until well into the 20th Century.

** Isidor Loeb in his “Constitutional Conentions of Missouri,” 1920, says in a footnote that there was a convention call in 1835 that the voters defeated. No detail or citations were provided. Given Professor Loeb’s status as a historian of Missuri’s constitutional conventions, the 1835 defeat is included here, despite the lack of detailed evidence.

Enabling Act for Referendum on Whether to Call a Convention

Description	1820	1843	1861	1864	1875	1922	1943
Passed by Congress?	Yes (3/6/1820)	No	No	No	No	No	No
Passed by Legislature?	No	Yes (2/27/1843)	Yes (1/1/1861)	Yes (2/13/1864)	Yes (3/25/1874)	No	No
Mandated by the state constitution?	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes

* The initiative passed in 1920 was ambiguous about whom was responsible for placing the constitutional convention referendum on the ballot. After the legislature failed to do so before it adjourned for the year, the Secretary of State was successfully lobbied to place the referendum on the ballot. The 1945 Constitution took away from the legislature its conflict of interest in placing the referendum question on the ballot by clearly giving that task to the Secretary of State.

Delegate Election

Description	1820	1845	1861	1865	1875	1922	1943
Election Type	Special	General	Special	General	Special	Special	Special
Election Date	5/1-3/1820*	8/4/1845	Feb. 1861	11/7/1865	1/26/1875	1/31/1922	4/6/1943
Districts #	15	33	33	33	34	34	34
District Delegates #	41	66	99	66	68	68	68
At-Large Delegates #	0	0	0	0	0	15	15
Total Delegates	41	66	99	66	68	83	83

* Delegate election was during the first three days of May 1820.

The Convention

Description	1820	1845-6	1861-3	1865	1875	1922-3	1943-4
Called by Legislature	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Called by Popular Referendum	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Start Date	6/12/1820	11/17/1845	2/28/1861	1/6/1865	5/5/1875	5/15/1922	9/21/1943
End Date	7/19/1820	1/14/1846	7/1/1863	4/10/1865	10/5/1875	11/6/1923*	9/29/1944
Duration in Days	38 Total Days	58 Total Days	853 Total Days	77 Session Days	74 Session Days	287 Session Days	215 Session Days
# of Proposed Amendments	0	0	N.A.	0	0	21	0
New Constitution Proposed?	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Delegates Voting for Constitution #	39	49	N.A.	38	60	N.A.	68
Delegates Voting Against Constitution #	1	13	N.A.	13	0	N.A.	4
Delegates Not Voting	1	4	N.A.	7	8	N.A.	10
Delegates Voting For Convention %	95.1%	74.2%	N.A.	57.6%	88.2%	N.A.	81.9%

* The convention recessed from 12/15/19922 to 4/16/1923 and from 9/7/1923 to 10/2/1923. There were 287 work days in total.

Referendum on Whether to Ratify Proposed Constitution

	1820*	1846	1865	1875	1924	1945
Type of Election	N.A.	General	?	Special	Special	Special
Date	N.A.	Aug. 1846	6/6/1865	10/30/1875	2/26/1924	2/27/1945
Constitution Proposed by Convention
Yes #	N.A.	~25,500	43,670	90,600	N.A.	312,932
No #	N.A.	~34,500	41,808	14,302	N.A.	185,658
Total #	N.A.	~60,000	85,478	104,902***	N.A.	498,590
Yes %	N.A.	42.50%	51.09%	86.37%	N.A.	62.76%
No %	N.A.	57.50%	48.91%	13.63%	N.A.	37.24%
Ratified?*	N.A.	No	Yes	Yes	N.A.	Yes
Estimated Population ****	In 1820: 66,586	In 1840: 383,701	In 1860: 1,182,012	In 1870: 1,721,205	In 1920: 3,404,055	In 1940: 3,784,664
Amendments Proposed by Convention
Proposed Amendments #	0	0	0	0	21	0
Ratified Amendments #	N.A.	N.A.	0	0	6	N.A.
Convention's Cost (not adjusted for inflation)	$8,791	$16,963	$52,365	$47,077	$753,883	$829,440

* In 1820, it was not felt that a ratification vote was necessary to ratify a proposed constitution. Instead, it was felt that a constitutional convention could ratify its own proposed constitution. The same was true of constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature. It was felt that if a constitutional amendment proposed by one legislature was also approved by the next legislature, then it was ratified. In 1861-3, the so-called constitutional convention did not have any ratification votes because no constitution or amendments were proposed.

** The 1846 ratification results are only approximations, as published by Evelyn Candace Cox and Isidor Loeb.

*** Only 41% of the total in the referendum to call a convention, presumably because the latter was a special election and the
former a general election.

**** Estimate population from census data from 1790 to 1870, and census data from 1900 to 2000.