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The Covid-19 pandemic and President Donald Trump’s large-scale election fraud allegations have prompted legal experts to warn of the risk of controversy regarding the results of this year’s US presidential elections. In fact, elections in the United States have been stalled several times.
White House in Washington, DC on October 7. Image: Reuters.
In 1800, the fourth American presidential election was a tie when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received 73 electoral votes. The Constitution of the United States states that in this situation, the House of Representatives determines who will act as president. In the presidential election of the House of Representatives, each group of members of a state has only one vote.
But when lawmakers voted on February 1, 801, neither Jefferson nor Burr garnered overwhelming support in all 16 US states at the time.
The House of Representatives voted 35 times a week, but Jefferson always won only 8 votes, not oversold. Finally, on the 36th ballot, Jefferson won 10 votes and became president. His opponent, Burr, became vice president, under the rules at the time.
In the 1824 elections, four candidates ran, including Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William Crawford. Andrew Jackson outnumbered all three in popular and electoral votes, but failed to sell 131 electoral votes to win.
This stalemate resulted in a vote in the House of Representatives. In the end, it was not Andrew Jackson, but John Quincy Adams who elected the House of Representatives president. Four years later, Jackson defeated Adams when he was reelected.
The most controversial presidential election in American history is believed to have been the 1876 showdown between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden.
In the southern states, voting was hampered by violent threats from Democrats who wanted black voters not to vote. Democrats also created votes in the image of Republican President Abraham Lincoln to entice illiterate voters to elect Tilden.
At the end of the chaotic election campaign, both parties declared victory in three states of Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina with a total of 19 electoral votes. Competing political factions in these states sent two different electoral roll lists, one for Tilden and one for Hayes, to parliament. In Florida, the state governor submits a pro-Republican party voters list, while the state attorney general submits a pro-Democratic party list.
These three disputed states determine the final outcome of the race. If Republican electoral votes count, Hayes will be president. If the Democratic electoral votes were counted, Tilden won.
The National Assembly created a 15-member committee to resolve disputes, in which the House, Senate, and Supreme Court each nominated 5 representatives. The committee ultimately voted 8 to 7 to 7, giving Hayes the disputed electoral votes, helping him choose the president.
Democrats accepted the result only after Republicans agreed to withdraw their remaining troops after the Civil War from the southern states. This compromise contributed to the racist “Jim Crow” period.
The Jim Crow Act, enacted throughout the South and several northern states, institutionalized economic, educational, and social distinctions for people of color, segregated public schools, public places and public facilities, restrooms, restaurants, and water tanks drinking among whites and people of color for about 80 years.
George W. Bush (left) and Al Gore during the 2000 debate. Photo: NBC.
The most recent controversial presidential election was between George W. Bush of the Republican Party and then-Vice President Al Gore of the Democratic Party. The final result was determined by 25 Florida electoral votes.
When polling stations closed in Florida, many media outlets claimed that Gore had easily won the state. But when more votes were counted that night, they withdrew their statement as Bush’s votes increased. In the morning, Bush gave Gore a few thousand votes.
Gore’s campaign asked officials in four of Florida’s largest counties to manually verify the votes. Ballots are cast in the form of a voter punching holes next to the candidate’s name. Three weeks after Election Day, Florida announced that Bush had won by a gap of 537 votes.
Gore doubted that number, and the state’s highest court ordered a recount of thousands of ballots rejected by the counter because they were not fully punched and there were still small pieces of paper stuck to the ballots.
The United States Supreme Court ordered this count to stop on 12/12, 6 days before the electoral assembly. The court ruled that the counties violated the constitution using different counting criteria.
In the end, Gore relented and said he did not want the country to continue falling into partisan struggles. Bush became the 43rd president of the United States and was reelected four years later.
Phuong Vu (Follow Reuters)
