This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE (10-26-04)

All indications are that the Presidential election will be extremely close.

I wouldn’t have thought that, but all the pundits are saying the same thing.

And...in the days between now and next Tuesday you’re going to hear about another Presidential race 128 years ago that was also not only razor thin, but one fraught with all kinds of charges of cheating at the polls and keeping the blacks from voting.

Yes....and that election so long ago also involved the state of Florida among several others.

Rutherford B. Hayes was the Republican candidate and Samuel Tilden the Democrat. Neither, however, was the incumbent president.

It was 1876 and federal troops were still running affairs in some of the Southern states, particularly Louisiana and Florida.

When the votes were tallied the day after the election, Tilden had the majority of the votes 4,300,590 to 4,036,298....a margin of about 260,000 votes.

But...big questions were raised in states like Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida. In these states some of the election boards were authorized to discard certain ballots and both parties sent representatives to those states to argue their case.

On December 6 the electors submitted their votes, including those of three disputed states. The Republicans claimed the three states for Hayes, but the Democrats had their electoral board and claimed the three for Tilden.

Oregon was involved briefly. The state supported Hayes, and it was determined that one of the electors was a postmaster, and thus ineligible to serve. The Democratic governor appointed a Democrat to fill his place which would split the state’s vote...2 for Hayes and l for Tilden. A struggle ensued, but the Governor relented and named a Republican.

The electoral count appeared to stand at 185 for Hayes and 184 for Tilden, but it was being hotly contested.

The Constitution was unclear....it said only that the electoral votes were to be transmitted to the president of the Senate who was to open all the certificates in the presence of both houses and then the votes to be counted.

Hayes had indicated earlier that if elected he would withdraw the federal troops from the South. While the controversy raged, he stayed at home in Ohio where he was Governor and awaited the results, confident that he had won the electoral count.

Both houses appointed a committee to work out the problem.It was to be 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans with one Independent and including five Supreme Court justices...two from each party and one independent. The Independent justice was Joseph Bradley of New Jersey.

Hayes opposed the idea, saying it was unconstitutional. While it was deliberating, friends of Hayes were negotiating with some influential southerners. The returns of all the states except Florida were found by the committee to be correct. A tie developed on the Florida return....and later Bradley cast his vote favoring Hayes.

It wasn’t until 4:10 on the morning of March 2 that the vote count was finally completed, it having been held up by Democratic challenges.

Hayes resigned his governorship on March 1st....took a train for Washington, but told friends he might be back.

The inaugural was set for March 5th which was a Monday, but Hayes was sworn in on Saturday, March 3 ending a controversy that threatened the country.

The similarities of this case...certainly mirrored those of the election of 2000, and might well be a repeat in the current election.

Time will tell.

This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.