A single Corpus Christi City Council seat drew five contenders in November's election, a level of interest that ultimately prolonged the final outcome until early Januaryโand at some points left officials scratching their heads as they were forced to dig through archaic rules to figure out how to determine the winner. After the November votes were counted, incumbent Everett Roy and former council member Billy Lerma earned the most support. But since neither got a majority of votes, the contest remained undecided.
Both men advanced to a December runoff, Votebeat reports. The second round of voting didn't bring a resolution. Turns out, voters were deadlocked. The candidates tied, 1, to 1, By law, that result triggered a recount. At Lerma's request, the recount was conducted by hand and took city officials roughly four days. The result: still a tie, the first one in Corpus Christi in decades, city officials said. The answer was in state law, which calls for the presiding officerโin this case, the mayorโto supervise what's called the casting of lots to determine the winner.
Their next move was to consult with officials at the Texas Secretary of State's Office, which confirmed that the law calls for some kind of game of chance, and city officials had to choose one. Huerta says they took this game seriously, spending three daysโyes, three daysโin meetings to decide how to resolve the tie. The group went over the pros and cons of using cards or flipping a coin, imagining all the ways each method could go wrong.
Or what if someone wanted multiple tosses? We had to think about a way to do this that would be fair, neutral, and as transparent as possible. The method they decided on was one they'd used for years for another election task, determining the order that candidates' names appear on the ballot.
In this exercise, candidates draw from a small wooden box filled with numbered beads, and the one who draws the bead with the highest number is listed first on the ballot. As a way to determine ballot order, this technique drew little attention from residents.
