72 Commutations 4 Days Before an Election. Normal?

Today, President Obama granted 72 commutations of sentence, just 4 days before the presidential election. It seems to us - at least on the surface - that what we have argued for so long was/is correct: he has more political capital to exercise the pardon power than any president in our lifetime. Why he waited so long to do so has always been a mystery. On the other hand, the paucity of pardons in recent administrations - and even smaller numbers of commutations of sentence - has often been explained in terms of presidential fear, or a hesitancy resulting from an environment hostile to the pardon power.

Interesting stuff, but how do Obama's pre-election grants look in terms of historical data?

We gathered preliminary data from over 100 years of presidential elections. We find that, in the 28 terms covered by the data, presidents averaged a distance of 87 days between Election Day and their last grant(s) of clemency. When was the last time grants were made a few as 4 days before the election? 1940, Franklin Roosevelt. When was the last time someone made grants less than 4 days before the election?  1928, Calvin Coolidge. Notably, in the administrations before Eisenhower (roughly half of the chart), presidents rarely ever went a full month without granting at least one pardon or commutation of sentence.

How do President Obama's 72 commutations compare? No other president granted as many, or even granted as many as 60 or 50. Only Jimmy Carter crossed 40, and that was 138 days before an election. Consequently, on average, the previous presidents, on average, granted a mere 9 pardons or commutations of sentence before the upcoming election.

President	Date of Most Proximate Clemency Grant(s)	Number of Grants	Date of Election	Distance Between Last Grant(s) and Election
T. Roosevelt (1)	10/30/1908	1	11/3/1908	4
Taft	10/28/1912	0	11/5/1912	8
Wilson (1)	11/6/1916	2	11/7/1916	1
Wilson (2)	11/2/1920	1	11/2/1920	0
Coolidge (1)	11/3/1924	1	11/4/1924	1
Harding / Coolidge	11/5/1928	2	11/6/1928	1
Hoover	11/3/1932	1	11/8/1932	5
F. Roosevelt (1)	10/19/1936	1	11/3/1936	15
F. Roosevelt (2)	11/1/1940	1	11/5/1940	4
F. Roosevelt (3)	10/14/1944	1	11/7/1944	24
F. Roosevelt (4) / Truman	10/4/1948	1	11/2/1948	29
Truman (1)	10/25/1952	3	11/4/1952	10
Eisenhower (1)	9/28/1956	8	11/6/1956	39
Eisenhower (2)	10/13/1960	37	11/8/1960	26
Kennedy / LBJ	10/22/1964	1	11/3/1964	12
LBJ	6/22/1968	1	11/5/1968	136
Nixon (1)	8/11/1972	1	11/7/1972	88
Nixon (2) / Ford	9/1/1976	28	11/2/1976	62
Carter	6/19/1980	41	11/4/1980	138
Reagan (1)	7/16/1984	3	11/6/1984	113
Reagan (2)	9/20/1988	3	11/8/1988	49
H.W. Bush	7/5/1991	12	11/3/1992	487
Clinton (1)	8/21/1995	1	11/5/1996	442
Clinton (2)	10/20/2000	7	11/7/2000	18
W. Bush (1)	7/6/2004	2	11/2/2004	119
W. Bush (2)	3/24/2008	16	11/4/2008	225
Obama (1)	10/26/2011	1	11/6/2012	377
Obama (2)	11/4/2016	72	11/8/2016	4
		9		87