Challenger Lauren Barnes had 1,502 votes at the end of election night, putting her painfully close to incumbent Gail Lyons, who had 1,558 in the two-woman race for Area 5 of the Brea Olinda school board in California.
The absentee ballots benefited Barnes, though, and when all were counted, she appeared to have pulled off an upset, being declared the winner 1,805 to 1,804. Yes, by one vote.
It wasn’t over, though. “A ballot that a machine count thought was blank,” the Orange Juice Blog reported, “turned out to have a faint but discernible ‘x’ mark for incumbent Gail Lyons.”
Tie ballgame.
In a democracy of more than 300 million people with thousands and thousands of races from president of the United States down to Division 7 of a municipal water district, every imaginable result will occur. And plenty of them did this year.
In North Dakota’s state representative race for the 46th District, it wasn’t merely the opponents’ vote totals that were nearly identical; it was the candidates’ names — and, frankly, appearances. Ben W. Hanson, a Democrat with reddish hair, a beard, and glasses, ran for the state representative seat based in downtown Fargo. Ben M. Hanson, a Democrat with reddish hair, a beard, and glasses, ran for that same seat.
Two representatives represent each district in North Dakota’s lower chamber. In June, Ben Hanson and Ben Hanson both qualified for the general election as they were the only two names (one name?) on the Democratic primary ballot. Come November, Ben M. received 3,349 votes, finishing in third place — three votes ahead of Ben W., who garnered 3,346.
That’s a blowout compared to Brea Olinda’s Area 5 race.
How’d that one resolve? Barnes and Lyons met on Dec. 5 to cast a pair of six-sided dice (sanitized between rolls) with the higher sum to be declared the winner. Barnes went first and, obviously cursed by the Fates, rolled snake eyes. Lyons, with now the lowest possible hurdle to clear, rolled a one on one die and a two on the other.
The odds of winning a contest with a three are 1-in-36 (or 2.78%) — which, to be honest, is much more likely than the election ending in a tie in the first place.
