Editing Elbert Tuttle (section)

===Georgia gubernatorial election dispute===

In the aftermath of the disputed [[1966 Georgia gubernatorial election]] between Democrat [[Lester Maddox]] and Republican [[Bo Callaway]], Tuttle joined Judge [[Griffin Bell]], later the [[United States Attorney General]], in striking down the Georgia constitutional provision requiring that the legislature chose the governor if no [[general election]] candidate receives a majority of the vote. The judges concluded that a malapportioned legislature might "dilute" the votes of the candidate with a [[Plurality (voting)|plurality]], in this case Callaway. Bell compared legislative selection to the former [[County Unit System]], a kind of [[electoral college]] formerly used in Georgia to select the governor but invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court. Bell and Tuttle granted a temporary suspension of their ruling to permit appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and stipulated that the state could resolve the deadlock so long as the legislature not make the selection. In a five-to-four decision known as ''Fortson v. Morris'', the high court struck down the Bell-Tuttle legal reasoning and directed the legislature to choose between Maddox and Callaway.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Fortson v. Morris|url=https://www.oyez.org/cases/1966/800?_escaped_fragment_=&_escaped_fragment_=#!|access-date=2020-10-13|website=Oyez|language=en}}</ref> Two liberal justices, [[William O. Douglas]] and [[Abe Fortas]], had argued against legislative selection of the governor, but the court majority, led this time by [[Hugo Black]] took the [[strict constructionist]] line and cleared the path for Maddox's ultimate election.<ref>Billy Hathorn, "The Frustration of Opportunity: Georgia Republicans and the Election of 1966", ''[[Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South]]'', XXI (Winter 1987-1988), pp. 46-47</ref>