AMERICAN ELECTIONS ARE A MESS, AND THEY ALWAYS HAVE BEEN THE LONG, WEIRD HISTORY OF PARTISAN ELECTORAL SHENANIGANS.

• Author: Boehm, Eric

IT WAS A presidential election unlike any before.

During the campaign, one candidate was accused of using his political connections for personal enrichment. His opponent, in turn, stood accused of being mentally unfit for office. Allegations of voter fraud, intimidation, and attempted disenfranchisement flew in both directions--and only got worse after the election did not immediately provide a clear winner.

The crucial electoral votes in four states were disputed by the losing candidate, and his supporters pushed a wild plan to submit alternate slates of electors to Congress. There were even calls for impromptu militias to march on Washington. Finally, weeks after the election, Congress settled the dispute and declared a winner, but the inauguration took place under unusual circumstances due to fears of more violence.

Watching those chaotic events unfold, observers surely couldn't help but wonder whether the American experiment was in peril. Could the country survive another election like this, or was it a sign of dissolution--or even another civil war? Nearly 150 years later, the union endures.

Oh, you thought I was describing the tumultuous events of the 2020 presidential election?The parallels are there, of course: the accusations of bad faith, the threats of mob violence, the resolution by lawmakers under the Capitol dome. And the core of the fight, then as now, was whether the election had, in effect, been rigged by shadowy forces defying the will of the people.

The election of 1876 culminated with Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated as America's 19th president, despite having lost the popular vote and initially appearing to lose the electoral vote too. It probably remains the most controversial presidential contest in American history.

That's not to diminish the importance of the events that unfolded in the immediate aftermath of the most recent presidential election. The January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump and the preceding attempts by Trump and his associates to cajole everyone from county election officials to the vice president himself into overturning the results of the election were deeply worrying signs for the nation's health.

But the past provides context. It can also be a guide. A dysfunctional, chaotic election is not necessarily the end of democracy. If the history of American politics teaches us anything, it should be that parties and candidates will stop at almost nothing to achieve power, and not only on Election Day. Trump and his cronies are not the first maniacs to take a hammer to the American electoral system. They probably won't be the last.

The project of democracy is always in flux. Maintaining and improving the system requires an unfiltered view of history and a healthy amount of skepticism. That means refusing to dismiss the rising threat of anti-democratic sentiment on the right, but it also means not letting the issue become a partisan tool for the left either. Preserving American democracy will require what it always has: common sense, good faith, policy reforms that target real problems rather than partisan obsessions, and a willingness to accept that there's no such thing as a perfect democracy--only a functional, legitimate one.

ALLEGATIONS AS OLD AS AMERICA

THE PRESIDENTIAL BATTLE of 1876 was notthe first disputed election in American history, nor the first to be marred by allegations of voter fraud and other criminal behavior.

One of the most infamous electoral disputes involved two of the country's Founding Fathers. New York's 1792 gubernatorial election was a showdown that's nearly unimaginable today. The Federalist Party nominated John Jay, the sitting chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to oppose incumbent Gov. George Clinton. When the votes were counted the first time, Jay appeared to have won. But when the state legislature met to certify the results, votes from three counties were disqualified on technicalities and Clinton was declared the winner by a mere 108 votes. He was subsequently "denounced as a usurper," historian John Stilwell Jenkins wrote in his 1846 account, History of Political Parties in the State of New York.

In fact, the early years of American history were full of electoral shenanigans. The 1800 presidential election culminated in a backroom deal that handed Thomas Jefferson the presidency in an election that had been thrown to the House of Representatives after Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in the Electoral College. In 1824, Andrew Jackson won a clear plurality of the electoral and popular votes in an unusual four-way race, but the presidency was awarded to John Quincy Adams when the House once again had to settle things.

Both elections paved the way for changes intended to ensure that similar controversies did not pop up again. Following Jefferson's victory, Congress and the states ratified the 12th Amendment, which changed how the Electoral College operates. And after the Jackson-Adams controversy, the political system adapted. A new party system emerged, with Jackson's faction forming the basis of what is today the Democratic Party. Rather than regional candidates, party-specific nominating processes began to control who would run for president. The influence of cohesive political parties created a new challenge for the democratic system. It was no longer just personalities but entire political machines trying to maximize leverage over election results.

They were not subtle. Gangs routinely intimidated rivals and stuffed ballot boxes. Potential voters were bribed with whiskey or food. Violence was common. In 1854, "Honest John" Kelly, an Irish Catholic and key figure in New York City's Tammany Hall political machine, organized a gang of shipyard workers and firefighters to attack a polling place at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Grand Street. They destroyed ballots marked for Kelly's opponent and ensured "Honest John's" narrow win in his first election to Congress.

By 1876, those tactics had been honed. Samuel J. Tilden, a New York governor who rose to political prominence in part because he took on those Tammany Hall gangs, defeated Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote by about 250,000, about 3 percent of the total vote.

Each side engaged in widespread fraud. Both parties claimed victory in three states--Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina--while a single electoral vote in Oregon was also subject to a dispute. With those 20 electoral votes cast into doubt, Tilden was one vote shy of the outright majority needed to win the presidency.

What followed was unprecedented. Congress was unable to resolve the impasse in the Electoral College because Republicans controlled the Senate, the president of which, per the Constitution, is responsible for tallying the electoral votes. Democrats, meanwhile, controlled the House, which would elect the president if neither candidate received a majority in the Electoral College. If the Republican Senate rejected the votes from the disputed...