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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWest Texas election to be decided with coin toss (No kidding!)
WOLFFORTH, Texas (AP) A coin flip will decide the outcome of a recent West Texas city council election after both candidates had the same number of votes.
The coin toss Friday will break the 118-vote tie between council candidates in Wolfforth (WOOL-furth), near Lubbock. Bruce MacNair and Bryan Studer agreed to the option because they didn't want the city to pay $10,000 for a run-off.
The city attorney drew up a three-page contract outlining rules of the coin toss based on state election procedures for municipalities.
Texas election law provides three options in the event of a tie: a runoff election, one candidate conceding or some form of casting lots.
The candidates will draw for who gets heads and who gets tails.
Link: http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2012/may/18/no-headline---tx--election-coin_toss119/
The coin toss Friday will break the 118-vote tie between council candidates in Wolfforth (WOOL-furth), near Lubbock. Bruce MacNair and Bryan Studer agreed to the option because they didn't want the city to pay $10,000 for a run-off.
The city attorney drew up a three-page contract outlining rules of the coin toss based on state election procedures for municipalities.
Texas election law provides three options in the event of a tie: a runoff election, one candidate conceding or some form of casting lots.
The candidates will draw for who gets heads and who gets tails.
Link: http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2012/may/18/no-headline---tx--election-coin_toss119/
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West Texas election to be decided with coin toss (No kidding!) (Original Post)
MelissaB
May 2012
OP
SoutherDem
(2,307 posts)1. Can't remember where or when but
I have heard of this happening before. Add some meat behind every vote counts. Just imagine the person who didn't vote and doesn't like the outcome of the coin toss.
RagAss
(13,832 posts)2. Why not ten paces and draw ?... Texas ain't what it used to be.Yeeee Hawwww.
JFN1
(2,033 posts)6. Damn! That's funny!
And you just made me shoot Pepsi out of my nose...caught me off guard, you did...!
tanyev
(42,669 posts)3. They'd better check both sides of the coin before the toss.
JFN1
(2,033 posts)4. Statistics - the science, not the practice -
has proven "heads" comes up roughly 60% of the time in a coin toss...no one is certain why, either.
I think I'd choose another method of drawing lots, in their shoes...
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)5. One of the standard tie-breaking methods
I've also seen ties broken by a high card draw from a deck of cards. This usually happens in smaller election districts where the vote tabulations can be easily checked, and the race is a true deadlock.