BENTONVILLE --The Queen of Spades was a winner in Tuesday's election for a seat on Siloam Springs' Board of Directors.
None of the three candidates for the at-large Position 5 seat received the 50 percent plus one vote required to claim victory. At question was who would fill the second spot on the Jan. 9 runoff ballot. The decision came down to the luck of the draw between two candidates who were tied after all the votes were counted.
After the 255 votes cast in Tuesday's special election were counted, Reid Carroll led the three-way race for the Position 5 seat on the board with 86 votes. The remaining candidates, Jerry Caveness and Karl Mounger, were tied with 84 votes.
"I actually didn't know what they were going to do," Caveness said.
Arkansas Code 7-5-106 mandates a tie will be broken by drawing lots, according to Kim Dennison, election coordinator. The law doesn't detail the method to be used, and Russ Anzalone, Election Commission chairman, said the commission settled on having the candidates draw from a deck of cards.
"According to state law, we could have rolled dice," Anzalone said. "We could have drawn cards, or we could have flipped a coin. We used a brand new deck. I shuffled it 10 or 12 times, and Caveness drew a nine and the other candidate drew a queen."
Caveness said he's satisfied with the process and the result.
"They did it right," he said. "They had the deck and shuffled the cards. I drew in the numbers and he drew a queen. I'm happy with it and he's happy with it."
Mounger said he's never seen anything similar to this.
"This is my seventh election, and I haven't lost yet," Mounger said. "It's never been this close. We had three good people, three well-known people running. It's just one of those quirks, I guess."
The special election is needed to fill the open seat once held by Lucas Roebuck.
NW News on 12/15/2017