Tonie Nathan

This morning, I learnt that on March 20th, 2014, Tonie Nathan died. Nathan was the first woman and first Jewish person to win an electoral vote in a presidential election in the United States.

In the 1972 election, Nathan was the vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, which was a new party at the time, serving as the running mate to John Hospers. The party was only on the ballot in two states, Colorado and Washington, but a Republican elector in Virginia chose to vote for Hospers and Nathan instead of Richard Nixon, thus making Nathan the first woman to win an electoral vote; Nathan's being of Jewish faith also made her the first Jew to win an electoral vote (in 1964, Republican candidate Barry Goldwater was of Jewish origin and he won electoral votes, but he was an Episcopalian).

The result of the election was not affected by the faithless elector; while Richard Nixon lost an electoral vote in Virginia, he still won the rest of that state's votes (11 out of 12) and secured 49 of the 50 states overall, giving him a landslide victory. It should also be noted that the 1972 election is, to date, the late time a person who wasn't a Democrat or a Republican won an electoral vote, although there have been faithless electors since then.

Nathan's achievement came more than ten years before Geraldine Ferraro won electoral votes as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984. While it will most definitely be a day to celebrate how far women have come when the United States does elect a woman president, Nathan will be almost completely forgotten to anyone who isn't familiar with US presidential elections and the non-major party candidates. She's already a footnote, given that most people haven't heard of her; as I wrote earlier, I only learnt about her today.

With Nathan's death, all six people who received electoral votes in the 1972 election - plus Roger MacBride, the faithless elector - are now deceased.