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However, conservative legislators feared the end of the county unit system as portending a loss of white power in the electoral process, and State Representative [[Denmark Groover]] drafted legislation to change the primary and general election systems from [[plurality voting]] to a [[two-round system]]. The bill was passed in 1964, but would not be extended to statewide executive elections until after the result of the [[1966 Georgia gubernatorial election]], which persuaded the General Assembly to send Amendment 2 to passage by referendum in 1968.
== Similar systems ==
=== Mississippi ===
Under Article 5, Sections 140-143 of the 1890 [[Constitution of Mississippi]], a candidate for [[Governor of Mississippi]] needed a majority of voters across the state and a majority of voters in a majority of [[Mississippi House of Representatives|state House of Representatives]] districts; if no candidates achieved such a result, the state House of Representatives would choose between the top two finishers, something that only happened in [[1999 Mississippi gubernatorial election|1999]], when [[Ronnie Musgrove]] received 61 electoral votes, one short of a majority, and was also 2,936 votes (0.38%) short of a popular vote majority: the House elected Musgrove on the first ballot.
This structure was referred to as Mississippi's version of the [[United States Electoral College|electoral college]]; it was originally crafted, in the words of the Mississippi Historical Society, as part of "the legal basis and bulwark of the design of white supremacy". In the 21st century, because the state House districts favor Republican candidates, the provision was seen as helping Republican gubernatorial candidates as well.<ref>{{cite web |date=October 11, 2019 |title=How a Jim Crow law still shapes Mississippi's elections |url=https://www.vox.com/2019/10/11/20903401/mississippi-jim-crow-law-rig-election-electoral-college-jim-hood-tate-reeves}}</ref>
A 2020 referendum amended Section 140 and repealed Sections 141-143. Under the new law, any candidate who receives a majority of statewide votes will be elected; if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a statewide runoff election between the top two candidates will be held.<ref>{{cite web |date=November 4, 2020 |title=For the first time in state history, voters remove Jim Crow provision from Mississippi Constitution |url=https://mississippitoday.org/2020/11/04/for-the-first-time-in-state-history-voters-remove-jim-crow-provision-from-mississippi-constitution/}}</ref> The [[2023 Mississippi gubernatorial election]] was the first to be held under the new law.
==References==
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