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Roberts: 50–60% 60–70% Del Sesto: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% | |||||||||||||||||
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The 1956 Rhode Island gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1956. The Election Pitted incumbent Democrat Dennis J. Roberts Against Republican nominee Christopher Del Sesto
Although Del Sesto won a plurality, he didn't become Governor that year. The Board of Elections completed its count on December 18, 1956; Del Sesto was the apparent winner by 427 votes. But in what was known as the "long count," the Rhode Island Supreme Court invalidated 5,000 civilian, absentee and shut-in ballots cast prior to election day on the grounds that a constitutional amendment required such votes to be cast on, rather than prior to, election day. The decision, released on New Year's Day, 1957, resulted in Roberts remaining in office by a plurality of 711 votes. (50.1%-49.9%) The incumbent Governor's brother was on the Court and recused himself from the decision, but "two of the four judges hearing the case, Chief Justice Edmund W. Flynn and Justice Francis B. Condon, both Democrats, were elected to the Supreme Court" under dubious circumstances "during Rhode Island's infamous 'Bloodless Revolution of 1935'."[1] Del Sesto ran again in 1958 and this time he defeated Roberts by 6,237 votes. (50.9%-49.1%)