by Brian Boone
Today, we all go to the polls and cast our votes across the country. Let’s hope none of the races are extreme nail-biters or as weird as these.
A TIE UNTIL EVERYONE CHANGED THEIR MINDS
Democrat Chuck Grassie and Republican David Walker vied in 2022 for a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives to represent the city of Strafford. Final election night tally: 970 to 970. Per state law, a special election was held in February 2023, and it was inexplicably not remotely close, with Grassie winning 55% to 45%.
THIS ONE MADE THEM FLIP
When all the votes were counted for the 2015 election for the spot representing the Vernon River-Stratford area in Prince Edward Island’s Legislative Assembly in Canada, Alan McIsaac had 1,174 votes against Mary Ellen McInnis’s 1,172. A hand recount followed to make sure the numbers were right, and they weren’t — McIsaac’s ballots accidentally included a McInnis one. That meant a tied election, and a local official determined the winner by a coin toss. The victory: McIsaac.
WHEN BEING POLITE DOESN’T PAY
A 2023 election for an open spot on the Rainier, Washington, city council was decided by a single vote — Ryan Roth proved victorious with 247 votes to Damion Green’s 246. The contest very nearly may have been tied, except that Green decided not to cast a vote for himself. He didn’t vote at all. “I thought it was kind of narcissistic, so I didn’t,” he told Seattle station KING 5. Roth filed what turned out to be the winning vote by checking his own name on the ballot, but only at the last minute and after his wife urged him to do it.
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HAVING A BALL
The November 1994 midterm elections, in which Republicans took both chambers of Congress in a landslide in the midst of Democratic president Bill Clinton’s first term, was so dramatic and intense that NBC’s Today hosted the live tiebreaker procedure that would determine who won a spot in Wyoming’s state House of Representatives. Independent Larry Call and Republican Randall Luthi both scored 1,941 votes from Lincoln County voters. To declare a winner, Wyoming secretary of state Kathy Karpan filled an old, floppy cowboy hat belonging to Governor Mike Sullivan with table tennis balls bearing the names of both candidates. Karpan pulled out a Luthi-marked ball at random, so he won the seat.
COUNT IT AGAIN?
The closest election on the federal level in American history was contested over a U.S. Senate seat for New Hampshire. Election workers’ official count after Election Day 1974: Republican Louis Wyman beat John A. Durkin by 355 votes from about 220,000 cast. That was a small enough margin to trigger a recount, after which Durkin moved ahead by 10 votes. Following another recount, the lead changed again and got even smaller: Wyman was declared the winner by two votes, a margin of 0.000901%. The seating of Wyman proved so controversial that the state Senate declared the position vacant and the governor called for a special election. This time, Durkin decisively won by 27,000.