Controversial elections in American history

Al Majalla looks at dotted instances between 1800 and 2024 where candidates contested the results, lobbing accusations of voter fraud and manipulation

AFP

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC.

Controversial elections in American history

Sami Moubayed

last update on 04 Nov 2024

Although rare, controversy over US election results and accusations of election fraud have swirled a few times in the nation's history. Some cases date back to the early 19th century, with accusations ranging from ballot rigging to voter intimidation and even counting votes of the dead. In 2016, Russia was accused of helping US President Donald Trump get elected.

When Trump lost the election in 2020, he famously didn't recognise the results, which led to the infamous 6 January insurrection at the Capitol Building and now, on the 2024 campaign trail, he has accused Iran of meddling to secure the victory of his rival, Kamala Harris. Tehran has been accused of cyberattacks—including hacking into campaign emails and disseminating stolen information—which would set a precedent if proven true.

In this piece, Al Majalla looks at the history of election fraud and manipulation in America from 1800 to 2024.

1800 election

During the 1800 election, sometimes referred to as “revolution” by its contemporaries, supporters of Vice President Thomas Jefferson were accused of taking up arms to support him against his rival, incumbent President John Adams. It was a bitter election between two of America’s Founding Fathers. Adams was one of the leaders of the American Revolution against the British, while Jefferson was the country’s first secretary of state under George Washington and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

The republic was young, and it was the first election in US history in which an incumbent was not re-elected. Thousands of Jefferson supporters poured into Washington on election day, warning of what they claimed would be a “usurpation” of office by Adams, striking a similar note to what Trump supporters did at the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021, two months after his defeat. However, unlike in 2020, Thomas Jefferson won the 1800 election with 65 of the electoral votes and 45,411 of the popular vote and was sworn in on 4 March. After leaving office, Adams admitted that the country had come to close to a civil war, saying: “A civil war was expected.”

1876 election

The 1876 election on 7 November was contested between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes from Ohio and Democratic nominee Samuel J. Tilden from New York. Tilden won the popular vote, but the Republicans accused him of voter intimidation and fraud. On 8 January 1876, his friend Henry Watterson, a Democratic congressman from Kentucky, urged Kentuckians to march on Washington to make sure that Tilden was installed president. Joseph Pulitzer (owner of the popular New York World newspaper and later founder of the Pulitzer Prize) went a step further, calling on 100,000 people to do the same and be “fully armed and ready for business.”

In 2020, Trump criticised mail-in voting, claiming it was rigged, and said he wouldn't recognise the results if he lost

It was a repeat of what had happened between Jefferson and Adams in 1880. Tilden supporters marched throughout the streets of Washington, chanting "Tilden or blood." They carried clubs and threatened to take the White House by force. A deal was eventually struck confirming Hayes as president, marketed as a compromise. Tilden was furious, retiring from politics before he died in 1886.

1960 election

A more contemporary example of election fraud was in 1960 when Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy was competing for the White House with incumbent vice-president Richard Nixon. The Washington Post spoke to Earl Mazo, Nixon's biographer, who said: "There was a cemetery (in Chicago) where the names on the tombstones were registered and voted. I remember a house. It was completely gutted. Nobody was there, but there were 56 votes for Kennedy in that house."

Fraud reports also surfaced in Texas, where Kennedy's running mate Lyndon B. Johnson was Senator, and The New York Herald Tribune planned a 12-part series on the subject, but it was called off after four articles were published, at the request of Nixon himself who said that coming in the midst of the Cold War "our country cannot afford the agony of a constitutional crisis."

The Nixon team pressed him to call for a recount in Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey, where Catholic lobbies had handed the Kennedy campaign, but he also said no. In his memoirs, Nixon explained his decision not to press charges, saying that this would have played into the hand of Latin American states where "every pipsqueak politician down there would start claiming fraud when he lost an election. I had no doubt that had the results been the other way around, Kennedy wouldn't have hesitated to challenge the election." Kennedy ultimately won the election and was sworn in on 20 January 1961.

2000 and 2004 elections

Another controversy erupted over the voter results in Florida in the 2000 presidential race between Democratic nominee and Vice President Al Gore and Republican candidate George W. Bush. Because Bush won by only a few hundred votes, state law required a recount.

BRUCE WEAVER / AFP — Supporters of presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush confront each other during a protest outside the Emergency Operations Center, 17 November 2000, in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Pro-Bush demonstrations took to the streets in Miami, many being Republican staffers, refusing a recount. A special commission accused the president's brother Jeb Bush of meddling with the ballots, claiming that the ballots of some black voters had been rejected and Hispanic and Haitian voters were not given ballots in their native language or provided with translation assistance. Bush won by a minuscule margin of 0.009%.

Four years later, rumours swirled during the 2004 election that Bush's team had rigged the election to prevent the victory of his rival, Democratic nominee John Kerry. Newspaper columnists insisted that the election had been "stolen," while Democratic Congressmen called for an investigation. Their calls fell on deaf ears, however, and Bush was reinstated for a second term as president.

2016 election

Although ultimately emerging victorious, Trump raised eyebrows by declaring on 20 October 2016: "I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win." During the election, he accused the Democrats of rigging the election, especially in Iowa, claiming right after taking office that around four million illegal immigrants had voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton. On the other side of the spectrum, Democrats accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of meddling in the election to secure a Trump victory.

2020 election

Trump used the same rhetoric during the 2020 election, where he took to Twitter, now X, saying that he would not recognise the results if he lost. He famously criticised mail-in-voting, claiming it was rigged.

These claims would later be challenged by FBI director Christopher A. Wray, who, testifying under oath, said that the FBI had not seen "any kind of coordinated national voter fraud … whether it's by mail or otherwise." His team filed multiple lawsuits after the election of Biden—all of which were dismissed as baseless. Biden went on to be sworn in as president on 20 January 2021.

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