Dem wins coin toss to break election tie, then takes home the quarter

It was a vote for change.A Democrat won election to a local seat in Kentucky by coming out on top in a coin-toss tiebreaker – then joked she ended up 25 cents richer, reports said.Democrat Kristen Fryman and Republican Benny Ray Renner each notched 91 votes in Robertson County’s race for a magistrate judge position, which left the outcome to a quirk of Kentucky election law, according to local reports.The candidates used a quarter borrowed from the sheriff’s pocket to break the tie, according to WEKU. “Our county clerk, she flipped it, and Benny, my opponent, he’s the one that got the call because he was listed first on the ballot, and he called heads, and it was tails,” Fryman told the outlet, adding that a coin toss wasn’t how she envisioned winning.“We laughed about it, and I left here as the winner and with the quarter in my pocket,” Fryman said.The race was for a seat on the county’s fiscal court, Kentucky’s version of a county legislature, which sets the local budget and tax rates, the local outlet reportedFryman’s coin-flip win keeps county Democrats in the majority on the board in a county that President Trump won with about 80% of the vote in 2024 and where Andy Barr won his Senate seat by more than 40 points Tuesday with nearly 70% of the county’s vote last Tuesday. It’s not the first time in Kentucky that an important election was decided by a coin.Earlier this year, the Union County Republican primary also ended in a tie with the winner decided by the flip of a silver dollar, according to Fox 56. Coin tosses have also settled a tied Democratic magistrate primary in Logan County, a city commission seat in Hanson and a 2010 city council race in Madisonville, according to local reports....