Scraps of paper, a coin and a sack of numbered ping-pong balls settled a
deadlocked local election in Florida on Saturday morning.
For the first time in Duval County history, an election tie was broken
by a game of chance, after the two candidates running for Neptune Beach
city council seat four were tied at 1,448 votes apiece.
“You just have to prepare mentally for either way because it can go
either way,” Richard Arthur, who emerged from the games of chance the
victorious candidate, said. “You can never prepare for a game of chance.
You just have to go in with the best attitude either way however it
turns out.”
On Saturday morning, Arthur and his challenger, Rory Diamond, met at the
supervisor of elections office in Jacksonville, Florida, to settle the tie once and for all.
“The statute says a game of chance,” Diamond said. “I would have done a coin flip, because if it’s good enough for the Super Bowl it’s good enough for me. But ping-pong balls is just fine.” The rules governing the three-round game, (pdf doc), stipulated that the outcome would determine the winner of the election. Both men agreed to the terms. In the first round, the candidates’ names were written on “equally sized pieces of paper” and placed in a container. The supervisor drew a name: Diamond. He therefore got to call a coin toss in round two.
The supervisor flipped the two-sided coin and Diamond called heads. He
won again, and therefore earned the right to decide if he drew first or
second in round three.
Diamond elected to draw second from a sack of ping-pong balls numbered
one to 20,
the drawer of the highest number being the winner of the election.
Arthur selected a ball numbered 12.
Now it was Diamond’s turn to draw. He drew No4, and lost.
“We’ve seen so much,” said the Duval County supervisor of elections,
Jerry Holland. “We’ve seen close races, as close as two votes, but I’ve
never seen a tied race. So it’s great to be a part of history,”There's a news video here.
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