Recordpub.com - Fiala wins on coin toss: Kent mayor's race ends in tie, flip of half-dollar

By Mike Sever

Record-Courier staff writer

Anyone who doubts if an individual vote matters should ask Kent mayoral candidates Jerry Fiala and Rick Hawksley what they think.

Fiala won the Kent mayor’s post on the toss of a coin Friday morning at the Portage County Board of Elections after the official count ended in a tie vote.

Fiala had a two-vote lead over Hawksley on election night, but they tied at 2,052 each after provisional and absentee ballots were tallied in the official certified count Friday. Twenty-five percent of Kent’s 17,538 registered voters cast ballots for mayor.

That decision will stand unless an automatic recount set for Nov. 30 changes the vote tally.

It was the first of two ties that had to be decided by the toss of a coin Friday. Ohio election law specifies how tie votes are to be resolved.

“This will probably turn out to be a very historic meeting,” said elections board Chairman Norman Sandvoss. It was the first time he could determine that two coin tosses were needed to resolve ties, he said. The last tie was in 1979 for a Streetsboro City Council race.

“In my 13 years on the board of elections we’ve never had to do this,” Sandvoss said.

The last time a coin toss was used to determine a mayor’s race was the 1961 race between Mayor Redmond Greer and Robert Byrne. Greer was ahead in the final tally, but the two tied after Byrne demanded a recount. Greer retained the mayor’s post when his coin, too, came up “heads.”

By state election law, the coin toss was necessary to declare a winner in the tie. An automatic recount still will be held.

Explaining the procedure, Sandvoss had Fiala and Hawksley’s names written on lots and placed in his Ohio State hat to draw for who would call the toss. Fiala won the draw and called “heads” as Sandvoss tossed the coin.

“It’s heads,” Sandvoss declared after dropping to his hands and knees to read the coin after it landed on the floor.

Lois Enlow, deputy director of the elections board, provided the 1961 half-dollar used and Sandvoss sealed it in an envelope for the eventual winner.

After the meeting, Fiala and Hawksley shook hands. They will have to wait until Nov. 30 to see how the recount turns out.

“One way or the other, we’ll be in the history books,” Fiala said.

Both he and Hawksley agreed the election shows the value of the individual vote.

“One vote obviously changes things,” Hawksley said.

Sue Fiala, wife of the apparent mayor-elect, said she found the situation “very stressful.”

She accompanied her husband on his door-to-door campaign around the city and said they must have knocked on doors at 97 percent of the houses in Kent.

On election night, Fiala had 2,013 to 2,011 votes for Hawksley, but there were still 89 provisional ballots to be considered.

Hawksley picked up two more votes than Fiala out of those to tie the race.

Eight ballots had to be tossed out for technical errors or violations, such as the voter not signing the envelope or voting in the wrong precinct.