Episode 1 of 3

Formation of the Electoral Commission

When: January 29, 1877
Where: United States Capitol
Part of: Hayes declared winner over Tilden in the disputed 1876 US presidential election

Congress established a 15-member Electoral Commission to resolve the disputed electoral votes, marking an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

By January 1877, the question remained unresolved. Congress and President Grant agreed to submit the matter to a bipartisan Electoral Commission. This body was authorized to determine the fate of the disputed electoral votes, which neither candidate initially secured enough to win outright.

Sources

1876 United States presidential election Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-06
Rutherford B. Hayes Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-17

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.