King Trumps 5 as Card Flip Settles an Election Tie in North Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- The cards were unsealed, jokers removed. The deck was spread out on a green felt table for inspection. The man overseeing the proceedings even made an amateur flub, telling the women to draw cards a little too soon.

After some laughter, the deck was shuffled and cut. The first woman drew a five of diamonds, the second a king of diamonds. The outcome was clear.

A Vegas moment? Sure, except this evening's card game didn't take place in a casino and no money rode on the outcome.

This, as it happens, is how Nevadans settle elections when there's a tie. State law since 1965 has dictated that the winner be determined by "drawing lots," and in most cases that has meant relying on a card draw.

Tanya Flanagan and Linda Meisenheimer both garnered 328 votes in the April 5 primary for a City Council seat in the Vegas suburb of North Las Vegas. That was good 20.71 percent of the vote and left them in a tie for second place behind the top vote-getter, Pamela Goynes-Brown.

Flanagan drew first because her name was first alphabetically, and she knew she was in trouble when that five came up. In the end, it wasn't close: Meisenheimer will face Goynes-Brown in the June 7 general election.

While election ties happen occasionally in some of Nevada's sparsely populated counties, this is the only one to happen in the 14 years that Larry Lomax, Clark County's registrar of voters, has been with the department.

As the votes came in on April 5, Lomax and his staff feared this outcome.

"Our laughing motto is: We don't care who wins -- we want them to win by a lot," Lomax said. "Whenever a race is close, it offers up a chance for a recount."

Guy Rocha, Nevada's retired state archivist, noted that ties typically happen in low-vote elections, and that's true in this case. Turnout in North Las Vegas was 9.2 percent, and only 1,584 votes were cast in this race.

"All these races are small," he said. "It's hundreds of votes. Big races don't end up like this."

Neither Flanagan nor Meisenheimer asked for a recount, which would have cost the candidate who demanded it $600. Since Clark County began using electronic voting machines, no votes have been changed in seven past recounts. The women, who contemplated their options over dinner after the election, decided that a recount would only prolong their limbo. As it is, they've lost three weeks of campaigning against Goynes-Brown, who got 27 percent of the primary vote.

Both said they would have preferred a three-way general election, but the law does not provide for that. Goynes-Brown declined to comment.

"It's an awkward position to be in," said Flanagan, who has spent about $20,000 on her campaign. "The majority of the focus has been on the circumstances and situation, not the race itself." The only upside, she said, is that all this attention may inspire more people to vote in the general election.

If the situation was untenable for the candidates, it's kind of a kick for the man who oversaw the card draw, David Hernandez. Hernandez, director of the Casino Management Program at the College of Southern Nevada, said he recalls learning about the tie-break process back when he was a college student in the 1980s and viewed it as "a terrific opportunity to participate in this unusual practice of my state."

Unlike in casino games, nobody had a statistical edge, Hernandez said. Flanagan drew first because her surname comes first alphabetically, but, he insisted, "it's all very kosher.

"This is part of the character of the state," he said. "We are the kind of people who take our chances."

Councilman William Robinson, whose seat will be filled by Meisenheimer or Goynes-Brown and who oversaw the card flip, clearly disagrees. "Drawing cards to determine an election is just crazy."

Despite living in the nation's casino capital, both Flanagan and Meisenheimer insist they don't wager. Neither had any good-luck charms or superstitions going into the event, just supporters and family who crowded the North Las Vegas City Council chambers for the big moment.

Meisenheimer said she is so clueless about gambling that it didn't even occur to her when Flanagan drew the five that the odds of her winning skyrocketed.

"No, I had no idea," she said. "I said I'm not a gambler, and there's a good reason I'm not. I guess that proves it, huh?"