I’m looking forward to Tuesday.

Finally — at least I hope so — we can put behind us some of the vitriol of the last few years regarding the upcoming presidential election, whatever the outcome.

I’m sure that many will agree this latest opportunity we have to pick the leader of the free world for the next four years has been a wild ride, no matter your political affiliation or candidate preference.

We’ve heard from the pundits, pollsters and talking heads that Tuesday’s balloting could result in one of the closest and most unusual elections in out history.

And there have been some wild ones.

Take the election of 1876, for example, when Ohio Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, squared off against Democrat and New York Gov. Samuel Tilden.

Long story short, Tilden won the popular vote, but Hayes got the presidency after a special election commission made up of congressmen and Supreme Court justices decided he’d win by just one electoral vote. Three southern states submitted two sets of electors, and a deal gave the GOP the presidency. In return, Democrats got Hayes to withdraw federal troops from the south and ended the post Civil-War Reconstruction era.

An inconsistency in the Constitution allowing that interpretation has never been resolved.

More recently, the election of 1960 became one of the closest in the nation’s history up until that time.

That election, the first ever with televised debates, had Democrat John F. Kennedy, a senator from Massachusetts, running against Richard M. Nixon, the sitting Republican vice president. Kennedy’s youth and charisma gave him an edge on TV, and he went on to win by about 100,000 votes of almost 69 million cast. In addition to being the youngest president elected, JFK was the first Roman Catholic to hold the office. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963.

Perhaps the closest election in my years in the working press came in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush ran against Democrat Al Gore.

Gore won the popular vote by a margin of about 500,000, but a tight race in Florida set off an automatic recount. Initially, results showed Bush ahead by a few hundred votes, but back and forth legal battles and recounts questioned how valid some of the ballots were.

Those of us old enough will remember the term “hanging chad,” which referred to a tiny piece of paper punched from a ballot card. Some Florida ballots had holes that weren’t completely punched, leaving the chads partially attached and disagreement over whether the vote was valid.

More than a month later, the Supreme Court halted further recounts and awarded Florida’s electoral votes to Bush.

When it ended, Bush had 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266, making Bush the nation’s 43rd president.

Yet another political donnybrook took place in 2016, when GOP businessman Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton and a senator from New York, ran for the presidency.

When popular votes were counted, Clinton finished ahead by nearly 3 million. Trump won in many of the larger states, taking office after winning in the Electoral College.

The contest divided the nation, a split that continues until today. It also was one that highlighted the part social media plays in today’s politics, as well as the possibility of foreign interference.

Its implications carried through Trump’s exit from office in 2020, when former Vice President Joe Biden entered the White House.

We are just days away from the latest turning point in the nation’s future, and possibly the world’s future, for that matter.

Pennsylvania has been identified as a true keystone in the election this year. That only amplifies the importance of people getting to the polls and casting their ballots.

Who knows? Pennsylvania may well decide the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

With that in mind, it’s our responsibility to get out and vote on Tuesday — no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on.

Whatever the outcome, we should all work to move forward together, with less emphasis on today’s finger pointing and political rhetoric.

If it doesn’t work out, we can try again in four more years.

ED SOCHA | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.