One of the final races in the 2018 election was just decided — by a Dungeons & Dragons die.
In California, the race for Byron-Bethany Irrigation District Director 1 was left in a dead heat after election day, with each candidate garnering exactly 51 votes. As the New York Post reported, local officials decided to get a bit creative in how they broke the tie.
Because there was no specific rule about how they picked a winner, they decided to go with the Dungeons & Dragons die.
“The statute says when we have a tie that the winner is determined by lot,” Assistant County Registrar Scott Konopasek explained in a Facebook livestream of the election tie-breaker. “It doesn’t say what kind of lottery to use, so we’ve been kind of creative here.”
The choice of the Dungeons & Dragons die wasn’t entirely intentional, Konopasek noted. He said that someone happened to have the 20-sided die in the office, so officials decided that each candidate would get three rolls and the one with the highest total would be declared the winner.
Amazingly, the two candidates were nearly tied through the first two rolls as well, but Larry Enos rolled a 20 on his final go and ended up winning the race.
“This is a little different — not what I expected,” Enos said, via Bay Area News Group . “I was expecting a coin toss.”
Milan Petrovich never saw his loss, deciding to walk out after his third toss and find out later who won.
“When I’m done, I’m leaving — win or lose,” he told Bay Area News Group . “I won’t have to worry about it. I think this is funny myself.”
This was not the only election decided by unusual means in the past year, and some had much more at stake. In January, election officials in Virginia held a lottery-style drawing after two candidates for the state legislature tied. As Reuters noted, Republican incumbent David Yancey’s name was the one pulled from a ceramic bowl, allowing him to hold onto his seat — and for Republicans to retain control over the state legislature. Yancey’s win gave Republicans a 51-49 edge, allowing them to withstand a surge from Democrats.
“This has never been done before for the longest-running, oldest legislative body, if you will, in the New World,” Vice Chairwoman Clara Belle Wheeler said after the drawing.
Though the California election may have been a minor one, the Facebook Live video of the tiebreaker attracted some viral interest and generated 2,000 views online. That is roughly 1,900 more people than actually voted in the race.
