| By Neil Johnson, anchor/reporter, WCLO Radio |
Rock County has elected a new county board supervisor – with the help of a red Solo cup.
An official Rock County canvass of the April 2 election results showed the 190-to-190 tie vote between Lori Marshall and Brandon Buchanan in the Rock County Board’s District 11 election was, in fact, a deadlock.
But the county’s board of canvass was able to pick a winner: Lori Marshall.
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson says canvassers declared Marshall the winner after after they drew her name from a hat.
Well, not exactly a hat.
“A red Solo cup,” Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson says, naming the vessel the board of canvass chose from which to draw and declare a winner Monday out of the tie between Marshall and Buchanan.
“I cut the (paper with the names) so they were all exactly the same size, they were folded exactly the same way. Everything was done so it was completely at random,” Tollefson tells WCLO Radio News.
State election law requires that in a tie between candidates in municipal or county elections, a winner be chosen “by lot” – which means “at random.”
The state’s elections commission recommends municipalities or counties use a coin-flip or draw a name from a hat in the event of a tie vote.
Tollefson says the board of canvass chose to use a plastic, disposable red Solo cup as a chalice of decision in the deadlock because that’s the same method the county uses to randomly select the order in which candidates appear on races on its regular election ballots.
“You can’t see in it,” Tollefson says of the red Solo cup’s decidedly non-see-thru construction. “It’s random. You can’t look and see the papers (inside). It’s dark enough.”
The state’s random selection rule—or “election-by-red-Solo-cup,” as it were—is rarely invoked, because, as Tollefson says, bona fide ties are “very unusual.” In fact, although Rock County has seen a few local races in past years decided by just one vote, Tollefson says she has never seen an actual, verified tie in a local election.
Tollefson says Buchanan’s campaign as of Tuesday has already taken steps to pursue a recount. She says that’s a valid request, because a tie vote would fall under the same state threshold for a recount as a race won by a margin of just a few votes.
The recount could come as early as Friday, Tollefson says, but she thinks the April 2 tie vote will hold up under a recount just as it did under Monday’s official canvassing.
