Coin flip and lottery settles Michigan election tie
From CNN Correspondent Ed Garsten
December 11, 2000
Web posted at: 3:14 p.m. EST (2014 GMT)
FIFE LAKE TOWNSHIP, Michigan (CNN) -- With the flip of a coin and a
lottery, the winner of the tied race for township supervisor here was chosen
Monday.
Two candidates for the office, incumbent Dave Stremlow and challenger Toni
Larson, were tied at 600 votes each. An Election Night count indicated Stremlow
was the winner by two votes, and a machine recount cut Stremlow's lead to a
single vote. Larson requested a hand recount, finding one more vote in her favor,
resulting in the tie.
To settle things once and for all, the town
relied on a 1954 state statute that says in the
case of an election tie, a lottery will decide
the winner.
The county court clerk flipped a coin to
determine which candidate would draw first
from a box holding two slips of paper, one
that read "elected" and another that read
"not elected."
Larson won the coin flip and the draw and was named the winner. "This is
bizarre," she said, after selecting the winning slip of paper.
Stremlow didn't complain. "This is the democratic way," he said, and quickly
departed the scene.
When asked if the two presidential nominees, Republican Texas Gov. George W.
Bush and Democratic Vice President Al Gore should have settled that other
election dispute by lottery, Larson said, "It would have been nice, but they have
much more at stake than we do."
Though the township supervisor's race had one thing in common with the
presidential election -- a recount -- there were no punch cards, hanging chads,
lawyers or lawsuits.
The method of voting was an optical scanner.
There are 1,038 registered voters in this town about 30 miles southeast of the
northern Michigan resort of Traverse City.
Was ich allerdings nicht ganz verstehe, wieso jeder 600 Stimmen erhielt, bei 1038 registrierten Wählern??????
Gruß Dampf