The Electoral Commission, sometimes referred to as the Hayes-Tilden or Tilden-Hayes Electoral Commission, was a temporary body created by the United States Congress on January 29, 1877, to resolve the disputed United States presidential election of 1876. Democrat Samuel J. Tilden and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes were the main contenders in the election. Tilden won 184 undisputed electoral votes, one vote shy of the 185 needed to win, to Hayes' 165, with 20 electoral votes from four states (Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina) unresolved. Both Tilden and Hayes electors submitted votes from these states, and each claimed victory.
Facing an unparalleled constitutional crisis and intense public pressure, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate agreed to formation of the bipartisan Electoral Commission to settle the election. It consisted of fifteen members: five each from the House and the Senate, plus five Supreme Court justices. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. The Commission ultimately voted along party lines to award all twenty disputed votes to Hayes, thus assuring his electoral victory by a margin of 184. Congress, meeting in a joint session on March 2, 1877, affirmed that decision, officially declaring Hayes the winner by one vote.
Election of 1876
The presidential election was held on November 7, 1876, and Tilden won the electors of his home state of New York and most of the South, while Hayes' strength lay in New England, the Midwest, and the West. Tilden had won the popular vote by just over a quarter of a million votes, but he did not have a clear Electoral College majority. He received 184 uncontested electoral votes, while Hayes received 165. Both campaigns claimed the remaining twenty (four from Florida, eight from Louisiana, seven from South Carolina, and one from Oregon) votes. As 185 votes constituted a majority, Tilden needed only one of the disputed votes, while Hayes needed all twenty. The returns in several states, including the disputed states of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, were tainted by allegations of electoral fraud, with each side claiming ballot boxes had been stuffed, ballots altered, and voters intimidated.
Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina
Early returns suggested that Tilden had won the election, and on election night Republican Party chair Zachariah Chandler believed Hayes had lost. However, Chandler gave permission early the next morning to William E. Chandler and John C. Reid, managing editor of The New York Times (which had run the headline "The Results Still Uncertain"), to wire Republican officials in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina to hold their states for Hayes. In each state, Republicans controlled the partisan returning boards, tasked with certifying the popular results of the election. In response to Chandler's directive, Democratic Party chair Abram S. Hewitt organized committees of prominent Democrats to travel South and oversee the vote counting. President Grant, in turn, sent Republican delegations to follow the Democratic observers.
In each of the three disputed Southern states, the pattern that followed was largely the same: the returning board invalidated numerous ballots on the grounds of fraud or voter intimidation, delivering a popular majority to Hayes and the Republican candidate for Governor. A dissident Democratic government claimed victory and the legitimate authority to govern and certify the electoral vote of the state. The Republican claimant certified an electoral slate for Hayes, and the Democratic claimant certified a slate of electors for Tilden.
In Florida, the initial count showed Hayes ahead by 43 votes, but after corrections were made, Tilden took the lead by 94 votes. Subsequently, the returning board rejected numerous ballots, delivering the election to Hayes by nearly a thousand votes. The board also declared that the incumbent Republican governor, Marcellus Stearns, had won the gubernatorial election; however, the Florida Supreme Court overruled them, instead awarding the victory to Democrat George Franklin Drew, who announced that Tilden had carried Florida.