It all starts with voters. But sometimes, it ends up coming down to luck of the draw.
When an election ends up being extremely close, if not tied, Florida law has an election officials must follow: after all qualified votes are counted, there is a machine recount. Then, if necessary, there’s a manual recount.
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But if neither recount breaks the tie, Florida law says the candidates have to draw lots, and officials decide how that’s done.
This situation is rare, but we’ve found three instances where Florida elections in the last 10 years were decided in such a manner, and one of them was in Central Florida.
Mount Dora
A city council race in Mount Dora was decided by drawing names out of a hat.
In the 2014 city council race, incumbent Nick Girone and Marie Rich were tied at 2,300 votes each, even after a hand recount.
Some wanted a judge to force a runoff election, but in the end, the candidates’ names were placed in a top hat and a winner was drawn. That’s how incumbent Girone lost to Rich, his challenger.
The city council also considered doing a coin flip for the winner.
Neptune Beach
A race in a Duval County city was decided by drawing numbered ping pong balls out of a bag.
As our partner, WJXT in Jacksonville reported back in 2014, the vote was deadlocked for a city council race in Neptune Beach involving Richard Arthur and Rory Diamond.
First, there was a coin toss to determine who would go first. Diamond won and drew a number 4 ball from the bag. Arthur drew a number 12 and won the election.
Bradenton Beach
In 2016, the race for mayor of Bradenton Beach was deadlocked between Mayor Jack Clarke and former Mayor William Shearon, 195 to 195, even after a manual recount, according to the Bradenton Herald.
To resolve the issue, the Manatee County supervisor of elections at the time opened a fresh deck of cards, shuffled them, let Clarke cut the cards first, then reshuffled them and let Shearon cut the cards.
Clarke pulled a 10 of clubs. Shearon pulled an ace of clubs and won.