The one vote victory of Hayes over Tilden in the Electoral College was not a fluke. Hayes was the only candidate in U.S. history to turn small state support into a winning electoral strategy.
1824: Jackson-Adams
1888: Cleveland-Harrison
1876: Colorado Thwarts the Popular Will 
The election of 1876 is the centerpiece of every discussion of the Electoral College. The story: Hayes won the Electoral College by one vote, after numerous disputed vote tallies were resolved uniformly in Hayes' favor. The story usually focuses on disputes over the popular vote counts. But even when all the disputes were resolved for Hayes, he still lost the popular tally by almost a quarter of a million votes. How could he have won at all? Critics of the Electoral College claim that 1876 demonstrates that the U.S. electoral system can produce strange, inexplicable results. Not at all. The 1876 results come from the electoral system's very slight bias in favor of small states. It is the only election where the popular vote was close enough and the small states voted nearly unanimously. (For a table that shows how small states gave Hayes his victory, click here The table should open in a new window.) Hayes carried 5 out of 6 small states (all but Delaware) that had disproportionate influence over the Electoral College decision. The table shows states that had more than 7 electors per 100,000 votes cast*. With these 5 states (and Colorado, about which more in a moment), Hayes won 22 electors with just 109,000 in popular votes. The table compares that with Ohio, a state that had the same number of electoral votes. Hayes needed more than three times as many popular votes and barely took the state. The near sweep of the small states gave Hayes a boost equivalent to more than 200,000 popular votes. * In 1876 the average for all the states was just over 4 electors per 100,000 voters. The rest of the states ranged from just over 3 to just over 6 electors per 100,000 voters. There was also the situation in Colorado, where Hayes won with 0 votes. Colorado was admitted to the union in August, 1876. The state legislature, to save money, decided not to hold a presidential election (what a country!) They simply appointed electors who voted for Hayes. So what put Hayes over the top were 3 electors not chosen by the public. This was all perfectly constitutional, and it did not figure in the controversy over disputed electoral votes. Was it just a coincidence that Colorado was admitted to the union right before the closest electoral vote in history? Probably not. Colorado was the only state admitted to the Union between 1867 and 1889. The Republican Congress was unwilling to give up the patronage jobs in the territories. So admitting a state to the union was quite an extraordinary event. Perhaps the expectation of three additional Republican electors was a motivating factor. It is sometimes said that the formula for voting in the Electoral College favors the small states. But at the system evolved, the "winner take all" policy of most states neutralized the small state advantage. Of all the presidential elections, 1876 is the only one where the small states were decisive. It is poetic justice that the small states defeated Tilden, who was governor of New York, the largest state. The one other election where the small state effect nearly made a difference was 100 years later. In 1976, Ford took 12 small states, Carter only 4. The popular vote was close (Carter led by only about a million votes). However, Carter still won. The 1976 result shows that the small states have to be nearly unanimous in their choice of a candidate. Even 12 to 4 was not enough. |
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