Rather than using tables, I would recommend using an unordered list. But in order to achieve your objective using your current code strategy, you'll want to style just the links and not the table cell.

Assuming that you already have the table cell width set, your code should look something like this:

Code:

---

td a { color: #161a71; /*the color of the text */
background-color: #FFFFFF; /* the color of the background onmouseout*/
text-decoration: none; /* no text underline */
text-align: center; /* centers the text in the cell, assuming that's the effect you are looking for */
display: block; /* determines that the link will take on block properties, allowing the clickable area to fill 100% of the cell space */
}
td a:hover { color: #FFFFFF; /* the color of the text onmouseover */
background-color: #161a71; /* the color of the background onmouseover */
}
td a:visited { color: #161a71; }
td a:active { color: #FFFFFF; }

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(Feel free to remove the commenting, of course.)