Another contentious Florida recount
In 1916 there were missing ballots, voter fraud allegations, court battles
Cantankerous Florida recounts aren’t just a 21st Century phenomenon.
Over 100 years ago, in 1916, a staunchly racist, anti-Catholic, gun-toting pastor turned insurance salesman named Sidney J. Catts ran to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor — and won. At least, at first he won.
A whisker separated Catts and his opponent in the primary, the more establishment-friendly state comptroller W.V. Knott. (It’s difficult to determine exactly what the vote gap was, as the numbers tended to fluctuate in newspaper reports from the time.)
So, Knott went to court to get a recount.
Over the next several weeks a bitter battle ensued in Florida. Newspaper coverage from that summer and fall of 1916 evoke similarities with the 2000 and 2018 Florida recounts. Allegations of voting irregularities. Drawn-out, seemingly never-ending court fights. Lawyers. Reports of missing ballot boxes.
In a scathing op-ed for the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper, Catts accused Knott of committing “gigantic frauds” by altering and substituting ballots. Knott appears to have taken a higher road, at least publicly.
Knott would eventually win, overturning Catts’ initial victory in the primary.
But Catts would get his revenge. Jumping ship for the Prohibition Party, he faced off against Knott for governor in Florida’s general election that November. This time, he won decisively enough — 43 percent of the vote — to stave off another recount.
Catts was governor until 1921, then mounted three other unsuccessful bids for political office, for U.S. Senate in 1920 and for governor again in 1924 and 1928.
In 1977, 41 years after his death, he was the subject of a book called “Cracker Messiah, Governor Sidney J. Catts of Florida.”
“His administration was a turbulent one since many of the state’s political leaders opposed him,” reads a description of his governorship on the Museum of Florida History’s website.
“An imposing 200-pound, 6-footer, crowned with a shock of red hair, Catts captivated rural audiences with his folksy humor and storytelling. His message, however, was packed with poison,” reads a Sun Sentinel story from 1996 that was headlined “The Gunslinging Governor.”
“To make his presence all the more menacing, he packed two revolvers at political rallies.”
Catts, Florida’s 22nd governor, died in 1936 at age 72 in the small Panhandle city where he lived, DeFuniak Springs.