‘I thought they were joking.’ This election in Boise was just decided with a coin toss
The contest was over in less than a minute.
At stake was a job as elected representative. The job? A part-time, volunteer role as Republican Party precinct committeeman in Precinct 1915, which covers part of Boise’s West End from the Boise River to 15th Street, and from State Street to Americana Boulevard.
The contestants? Brock Frazier, chairman of the Idaho GOP’s Region 4 (which is Ada County), and Carol R. Davey, a California transplant,who told the Statesman she ran because she thought it would be a good way to get to know other people with her political beliefs.
The result? Initially, the election ended in a tie. Each candidate won 36 votes.
So where do you go from there? State law says a coin flip.
It’s not a super common way to end an election, but it does happen — particularly in smaller elections, like ones for precinct committeeman, Chelsea Carattini, spokesperson for Ada County’s elections office, told the Statesman on Tuesday.
Even in elections where a lot of people vote — and a record number of people voted in this year’s May primary despite the election being done entirely by mail — not every voter weighs in on their precinct committeemen.
People may not know what the job is (a committeeman represents the party at the precinct level and serves as a local connection to voters), or who the candidates are. Or they may just get tired of filling out their ballots after weighing in on county commissioners and other elections higher up the ballot.
Frazier had been through the coin flip before. In 2012, he won a flip for the same job. He has run for it, and won, five times.
“I thought they were joking when they first told me that in 2012,” he told the Statesman in a phone call after the flip. “But now, I’m a coin toss veteran.”
Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane took on Wednesday’s toss with a Susan B. Anthony dollar in honor of the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.
The front displays a head-and-shoulders profile of Anthony facing right under the word “Liberty.” The back shows an eagle landing on the moon. The coin, about the size of a quarter, was issued from 1979 until 1981, when it was retired in unpopularity. It was reissued briefly in 1999.
Davey said she wasn’t nervous, but those watching with her outside the Ada County Elections office on Benjamin Lane seemed to be. Frazier said he wasn’t nervous either, but he really wanted to win.
It took longer for McGrane to explain the process to the candidates than it did for the result to be decided.
He let Davey call the toss. She chose heads, which she said “just felt right in the moment.” Frazier accepted her choice, saying afterward that tails “did me well eight years ago.”
McGrane threw the dollar into the air, where it spun a few times.
“All I’m thinking is ‘tails, tails, tails,’” Frazier said.
The coin jingled as it hit the ground.
The eagle faced up. Frazier won.
When it was all over, people clapped and the candidates shook hands.
“It is fun when you win,” Frazier said, adding that he was glad the coin didn’t know that eight years ago, the same thing happened to him.
There were no hard feelings, Davey said in a phone call afterward.
“It was very short, it was very sweet,” she said. “It was a little weird, and that was it.”
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