I've heard from people that nearly every Presidential election is disputed by the other side in U.S. history, and from others that it's been every President since Reagan that the tactic had been developed and used by both sides. What is the actual history of claims of illegitimate Presidential elections and far back does it go?
For the scope I'd like to have the most recent two Presidents, Biden and Trump, to be left out. As both of the claims around their elections are undoubtedly fresh in everyone's mind. So focus on Obama and back unless it's in reference to a previous case like, "What was claimed about Trump was similar to what was claimed about President X." I want to avoid political arguments.
I want to start by pointing out that it seems like you/whoever you heard this from are conflating claiming an election is “illegitimate” and challenging an election through legal processes available. The two are not the same. There are legal processes available for candidates to adjudicate election claims, but doing so is not the same as declaring that the election was illegitimate.
It is just simply not true that candidates have regularly declared an election is illegitimate after their loss.
With the exception of two elections (within the 20 year rule of the sub), losing candidates conceded the election to their opponent within 1-2 days of the election. After concession, that was the end of it and they did not try to further challenge the election.
One notable outlier is the 2000 election between Bush and Gore. The election basically came down to an approximately 550 vote difference between the two. 550 votes out of over 6 million ballots cast in the state. This election was also the clusterfuck known for the dreaded hanging chads. For the uninitiated, this was before Florida implemented any kind of digital voting (remember, 2000) so their ballots instead featured boxes that voters were supposed to punch out, leaving a hole. Unfortunately a ton of people didn’t fully remove the “hanging Chad” from their vote which led to a lot of ballots thrown out because they couldn’t discern what the voter’s intention was. Gore’s camp was concerned that there was no standard process for reviewing which ballots are thrown out and with an election that close, he decided to file suit.
I’m going to pause here to acknowledge that Gore actually did call Bush and concede the election that night. Then an hour later he called back and basically said “lol nevermind” because the race was so close it triggered an automatic recount in Florida so Gore decided not to give up hope yet.
Anyway, Florida recounted and then certified for Bush. Thus began Bush v Gore. On December 8, 2000 the Florida Supreme Court ordered a count of the undervotes and Bush challenged this in SCOTUS, asking for a stay in the process. Long story short, the conservative justices sided with Bush. Gore lost on December 12 and conceded the next day.
You have to look all the way back to 1876 to find substantial claims of illegitimacy with Hayes and Tilden.
Of course there have always been small factions making claims in each election, but it’s important to note that those claims never caught on in any way, especially among political parties or politicians. So you may be able to find evidence of some people making some claims, but those are quite distinct from what we are talking about here.
Edit to add the 1916 election had a period of 2 weeks between the election and the concession speech, but void of illegitimacy claims.
Hello all,
This is a reminder of the 20 year rule. When answering this question, please refrain from talking about elections and events prior to 2002.
Thank you.