Donald Trump and the modern Republican party love to accuse the Democrats of “election fraud” Oooooh scarry! And yet, fact check website Snopes writes “There’s Still No Evidence of Systematic Voter Fraud in the 2020 Election.” But hey, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt maybe they are just still thinking about the election of 1876. The election of 1876 was also contested due to republican accusations of democrat election fraud in several key states. The big difference between 2020 and 1876 is that the election fraud was only real in 1876.

The election of 1876 was between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican and man who just has a real “president name”, Rutherford B. Hayes. Votes were disputed in Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina. In these states, Democrats had intimidated Black voters and white Republicans, and their families through violence or the threat of violence. In some precincts, some Democrats stuffed ballot boxes with extra votes or printed Democratic ballots with the Republican logo to trick recently emancipated Black people who were often illiterate. With the falsified results, technically Tilden could seem like the winner, but the election ultimately went for Hayes. Hayes in turn agreed to end reconstruction through a “policy of conciliation”. The rest of Hayes’ career was haunted by the election as his contemporaries referred to him as “his Fraudulency” and Hayes’ legacy was soiled as “the man who ended reconstruction”.

One thing that the 1876 election, 2020, and almost certainly 2024 do have in common is that there was an organized effort to stop people from voting. As Ari Goldberg writes, a study by the Bipartisan Policy Center, found, “…precincts with a high percentage of minority voters, renters, and lower incomes saw significantly longer wait times.” Additionally, as the League of Women Voters argues, contemporary voter ID laws are part of an effort to “promote voter suppression”. While the voter fraud Donald trump loves to scream about a problem that doesn’t exist, there are still certainly efforts to deter some people from voting.