So soon as the registration was completed, the commanders ordered elections to be held and the vote to be taken, first, upon the question of convention or no convention, and, at the same time, for the choice of delegates to the conventions. The commanders did their best to get out the vote. They met every device for keeping the negroes away from the polls and foiled it by means of their arbitrary powers, and they kept the polls open for two and three days, and in the case of Georgia, for five days. There is no doubt that there was repeating, although the military authorities exerted themselves most sincerely to prevent it. Their purpose was not, in any case, to permit fraud, but to give every opportunity to the freedmen to vote. Their efforts were aided by the fact that the elections in the Northern "States" during the autumn showed, in most quarters, large Democratic gains, and by the fact that in one of the great Northern "States," Ohio, the proposition to enfranchise negroes by an amendment to the "State" constitution was rejected by a large popular majority. The effect of these facts was to encourage the whites in the South, who had registered with the intention of defeating the proposed reconstruction by abstention from voting, to vote with the hope of securing a majority of the delegates to the proposed conventions. [Sidenote: The result of the elections.] The result was that in all the communities to be reconstructed as "States" a majority of the registered voters voted on the question of convention or no convention, and a large majority of those voting voted in {149} every case for the holding of the convention. The figures were as follows: In Alabama, of the 165,813 registered voters, 96,866 voted on the question of convention or no convention, and 90,283 voted for holding the convention. In Arkansas, of the 66,831 registered voters, 41,134 voted on the question, and 27,576 of these voted in favor of holding the convention. In Florida, of the 28,003 registered voters, 14,503 voted on the question, and of these 14,300 voted in favor of holding the convention. In Georgia, of the 191,501 registered voters, 106,410 voted on the question, and of these 102,283 voted in favor of holding the convention. In Louisiana, of the 129,654 registered voters, 79,089 voted on the question, and of these 75,083 voted in favor of holding the convention. In Mississippi, of the 139,690 registered voters, 76,016 voted on the question, and of these 69,739 voted in favor of holding the convention. In North Carolina, of the 179,653 registered voters, 125,967 voted on the question of convention or no convention, and of these 93,006 voted for holding the convention. In South Carolina, of the 127,432 registered voters, 71,046 voted on the question, and of these 68,768 voted for holding the convention. In Texas, of the 109,130 registered voters, 56,129 voted on the question, and of these 44,689 voted for holding the convention. And in Virginia,