Since East Lansing voters couldn’t decide on just two candidates Monday, the decision will be left to chance.
While Daphne O’Regan secured her seat on the school board, William Donohue and Randy Bell tied for second place, leaving the vote to be decided by two pieces of paper and a hat.
If the election is certified, the county clerk will have Bell and Donohue draw from two pieces of paper reading “elected” and “not elected” in a hat to determine the winner.
Michigan’s “tie vote” law was passed in 1955 and Bell, 46, commends its creators.
“Fortunately, someone in Michigan was smart enough to create a process for this exact problem,” the 4-H leader said Tuesday. “In the eyes of the voters, Dr. Donohue and I were equally deserving of the seat.
“I would rather have known the result last night, but sometimes you just have to wait for the process to catch up with you.”
Donohue, a 52-year-old MSU communication professor, was out of town during the election and unavailable for comment Tuesday.
The two MSU employees both received 27.6 percent of the vote. Board members are elected to serve four-year terms.
Ingham County Clerk Mike Bryanton said he wasn’t surprised by the results. While working elections last year he saw the Lansing city clerk race decided by a single vote and a Lansing School District millage denied because of a tie.
“It’s unusual, but not unheard of,” he said of the circumstances. “There’s a process put in place by our Legislature to specifically handle situations like this.”
The school district reported 8.6 percent of its 29,118 voters cast a ballot in Monday’s election, although no one voted at the designated polling area for Precinct 13, Owen Graduate Hall.
O’Regan, a 42-year-old East Lansing attorney, received 1,276 votes, Bell and Donohue each tallied 1,259 votes and Brett Gillespie, a 2002 East Lansing High School graduate, received 774 votes.
Bell and Donohue had many supporters in common, including some of their own campaign workers.
East Lansing resident Lee Griffin did “grunt work” for both Bell and Donohue, even though the two were not running a joint campaign.
“I’m very disappointed both of them can’t serve,” she said. “I naturally really don’t want to see them put against each other.”
Both candidates will continue to serve the district despite the outcome, Griffin said. Donohue serves as president of the East Lansing Educational Foundation and will continue to do so if he is not elected.
East Lansing resident Janet Welch voted Monday and was pleased with the results. She said she has no problem with a hat drawing to determine the winner.
“I think either of the two people that tied would do a good job,” she said. “The cost of another election to break the tie isn’t worth it, given that both the candidates received enough votes to stake a claim.”
After hearing the results, East Lansing resident Julie Crawford said she regretted not getting to the polls Monday.
Crawford said she doesn’t agree with the law to draw a winner from a hat.
“They need to recount the votes,” she said. “If there’s not a clear winner after that, they should definitely have another election.”
Some people such as Crawford have suggested to Chris Thomas, director of elections for the Secretary of State’s office, to run an entirely new election. But Thomas said an election is a “one-time opportunity for voters to express their preference.”
“They had their opportunity to come vote,” he said. “Why should taxpayers incur a whole new expense for people who were too busy to take the time to vote in the first place?”
Katie Byrne can be reached at byrnecat@msu.edu.
