If the election of 1876 were a sitcom, it would have all the tropes, at least, for an election. Voter fraud, disenfranchisement targeting people of color, shady behind-the-scene deals—you name it, the 1876 Election has got it. 

As votes from the 1876 Election were being counted up, Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, called election fraud. Only, unlike some, he was right. Voting ballots had truly been manipulated, specifically targeting newly enfranchised Black voters into wrongly voting for their choice of candidate. Military groups intimidated voters at the polls and at home, using political violence to sway the election outcome to their side. It wasn’t until March of the next year that Hayes would finally be named the President—but only after he made a deal to end Reconstruction. 

We can draw parallels both to the past and the future for the 1876 Election. Just like in the 1824 Election, in that infamous “corrupt bargain” that allegedly gave John Adams the election and Henry Clay the position of Secretary of State, conversations to make Hayes president were going on behind closed doors. Hayes, though an abolitionist himself, became known as the president who failed Reconstruction in exchange for his own political position. 

The Election of 1876 also draws parallels to a more recent one, the 2000 Election. Both elections took months to resolve and required special intervention. In the case of 1876, it was creating the new Electoral Commission to settle the race. For 2000, the Election was thrown to the Supreme Court. Issues of voter fraud came up in both presidential races, too. 

From these parallels, we see that political bargaining, contestation, and voter fraud is nothing new to the United States. In 2020, former President Donald Trump tried to appeal to this cycle in history, saying voter fraud had lost him the election. There was no such proof of this statement. 

Yet, as these issues do not exist in a vacuum, they are, in fact, important to keep in the forefront of our minds. The projected gap between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is projected to be narrow in the 2024 election. Maybe the cycle is set to run again this year.