Lincoln received no votes in ten Southern states because the Republican Party was absent in those states (parties rather than states printed ballots in that era). There were no ballots distributed for Lincoln in ten of the Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. This withheld 61 potential electoral votes from Lincoln, a fifth of what was the total 303 available to the other candidates. In a similar divide between North and South electors, Breckenridge carried nine of the ten states that withheld Lincoln from the ballot, the exception being Tennessee.
