The 1876 election was the closest two-candidate contest in the history of the Electoral College, with Hayes ultimately winning by a single electoral vote following the controversial resolution of disputed returns in other states. Hayes thus needed all six of California's electoral votes to win. While most sources give Hayes' plurality in California as 2,798, at the time Californian voters chose presidential electors individually. In four subsequent presidential elections (1880, 1888, 1896 and 1912), the overall results were sufficiently close that the state split its electoral ticket between two candidates. If this had occurred in 1876, Tilden would have been elected president.
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