Pages

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1800_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1828_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

h ps://www.ny mes.com/2001/01/07/us/over-some-objec ons-congress-cer fies-electoral-vote.html

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Electoral_College_vote_count

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Act

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_a ack

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1888_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1820_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1816_United_States_presiden al_elec on

h ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1788%E2%80%9389_United_States_presiden al_elec on

Criteria

I am only coun ng conten ons that lasted un l a er elec on day. All elec ons are conten ous un l
elec on day. The only ones being counted are the ones where there was a sincere a empt a er the
elec on to change the results. So, this is not just the top five, they are the only five that fit that criteria.

1800

The first two elec ons are the elec ons that were sent to the house of representa ves to decide. The
reasons these are ranked lower is that this is what is supposed to happen. This is the least conten ous
of the two because it wasn’t even between the two separate par es. It was between the president and
vice president of the democra c republican party. When an elec on goes to the house each
representa ve doesn’t get a vote, each state gets a vote. On this elec on, the New York delega on
couldn’t decide whether to vote for Jefferson or Burr. Eventually Hamilton convinced them to vote for
Jefferson, handing him the elec on. His reasons seemed to have been personal, not poli cal. We all
know that Burr shoots Hamilton over this. We’re at the start of the list and we already have a body
count.
1824

This is the more conten ous of the two elec ons that the electoral college sent to the house. There
were four major candidates, but the cons tu on only allows the top three candidates to be sent to the
house, while s ll requiring an outright majority of states to win. Adams won 14 the bare minimum
needed to win. Henry Clay was the fourth candidate and did not go to the runoff, he was however the
speaker of the house and was able to get many states carried by Jackson to switch to Adams. Jackson
was very bi er about this and blamed Clay for the loss. Became back and won the next elec on
outright, winning all of the states that Clay won in this elec on.

2000

These next three were decided by an outright winner of the electoral college, eventually. . In this
elec on it all came down to one state, Florida. Without Florida neither candidate received 270 electoral
votes. The winner of Florida would win the elec on. To me, this is where the phrase, “I demand a
recount” became popular. There are two rules in Florida recounts that seemed interes ng. One, the
candidate that demands a recount picks the coun es that are recount. Gore picked coun es that were
more likely to go his way. By doing this, he was more likely to get the votes he needed to win. The other
rule was that the recount had to be completed by a certain date. Ul mately the supreme court had to
decide how the recount was to be counted. What they came up with is that all votes have to be treated
the same. You can’t treat some votes some way and some votes another way. We can all agree with
that, but what makes that a hard decision to make is, what method of recount treats all votes the same?
Whoever actually won this elec on, it was certainly a close one.

A er the electoral college voted the votes were sent to congress to be cer fied. If I was making a video
just about this elec on, I probably wouldn’t men on it, but it becomes important in the other two
elec ons. Some congressmen tried to have the Florida votes not cer fied, they were unable to get a
single senator to sign on with them. It wouldn’t have worked. There was no separate slate of electors,
the votes would have just had to have been thrown out, sending it to the house like in the first two
elec ons on this list, where Bush would have won. This is a very interes ng ar cle and it seems to be
free, so you should go read it. Gore had to oversee the cer fica on of his own loss, and he may have
been able to override it and declare himself president, not really. At some point he may have had that
power, but he does not.

2020

Some people are probably surprised that this one is not number 1. It does have some recency bias, but I
have also seen a lot of people overstate the recency bias. The Covid-19 pandemic led to a surge in mail
in ballots (I mailed in my ballot). This led to accusa ons of voter fraud. Unlike in 2000 senators did
object and congress had to vote on whether to cer fy these votes. Ul mately the votes were all
cer fied.

While this was happening, Trump supporters were outside the capitol building, and believed that Vice
President Pence could declare electors invalid. This is not true. He must open the cer fica ons and they
must be accepted unless a senator and a representa ve object an if both houses of congress sustain that
objec on. This was made clear in the Electoral count act of 1887, remember that date. The protestors
turned into rioters and stormed the capital. While officers were defending the capitol there were several
casual es, making this the second elec on on this list with a body count.

1876

There are some similari es between this elec on and the 2020 elec on. The controversy came to a
head when it came me for congress cer fy the vote. The states of South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana
were accused of massive voter fraud and voter suppression. In South Carolina 101 percent of the eligible
voters cast ballots. No one really knew how to deal with this. One theory was that the vice president
had the power to decide. The issue was that there was no Vice president at the me. This elec on led
to the Electoral count act that prevented Gore and Pence from interfering. The reason this one ranks
higher than the 2020 elec on is that the a empt to overturn the result of this elec on was successful.
Tilden’s electors in the contested states were thrown out and given to Hayes. In exchange the democrats
were given an end to reconstruc on. There were s ll federal troops in Louisiana and South Carolina.
They were withdrawn, reconstruc on ended and the Jim Crow Era officially begun.

No ce that Louisiana and South Carolina were two of the states that were contested in this elec on and
were also s ll being occupied by federal troops. Elec ons were difficult during reconstruc on. Votes
were also thrown out in the previous elec on, but they wound up having no effect on the outcome. I
think it’s worth poin ng out now that this was not a stolen elec on. No one really knows who won this
elec on , unlike in 2020 these accusa ons were credible, 101 percent of the people cannot vote and
black votes were suppressed. If only one of these elec ons should have been overturned by congress,
this is the one.

Honorable Men ons

These two are Honorable Men ons because they do not really fit my criteria, but they are interes ng
nonetheless.

1888

In 1888 Cleveland lost but ran again in 92 and won. So he contested the elec on by running it again.
One of the things that may have ,mo vated him to run again was the fact that he won the popular vote
but lost the Electoral college making him one of three presidents to win the popular vote more than
twice. The other two being FDR and Andrew Jackson from the beginning.

1860

This elec on was not contested by the candidates, but it was contested by a lot of people. So much so
that they started a civil war. I don’t even want to men on the body volunteer for this one.

Dishonorable Men ons

It’ll be fun to end on these because in this elec on pre y much everyone was in agreement.

1820

This was known as the Era of good feelings. No one even ran against Monroe. If the previous elec on
was any indica on, no one had a chance. This was the only uncontested presiden al elec on in US
history. You may think that 1789 with George Washington was uncontested, but that’s not true. There
was a lot of compe on for the Vice Presidency and since President and vice president were elected
together all the people running g for vice president were also running g for Vice President. So in this
elec on John Adams beat George Clinton.