Why was the result of the election of 1876 controversial?

A)An election commission, not the popular or electoral vote, decided the election.
B)Hayes won the majority of electoral votes, but Tilden won the popular vote.
C)The Supreme Court decided the election after one state’s results were unclear.
D)Tilden won the popular and electoral votes, but Congress decided to elect Hayes.

In the presidential election of 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden ran against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. At the end of election day, no clear winner emerged because the outcomes in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana were unclear. Both parties claimed victory in those states, but Republican-controlled “returning” boards would determine the official electoral votes.

Republicans and Democrats rushed to those three states to watch and try to influence the counting of the votes. The returning boards determined which votes to count and could throw out votes, if they deemed them fraudulent. The returning boards in all three states argued that fraud, intimidation, and violence in certain districts invalidated votes, and they threw out enough Democratic votes for Hayes to win. All three returning boards awarded their states’ electoral votes to Hayes