Coin flips choose winners in Island Lake, Green Oaks

More than two weeks after Election Day, a pair of deadlocked Lake County village-board races were decided by chance Wednesday — coin flips.

With County Clerk Willard Helander doing the honors in her Waukegan office, the coin flips awarded Patricia Thomas a seat on the Green Oaks board and Charles Cermak a seat on the Island Lake board.

Thomas was tied with Richard S. Glogovsky for the third of three seat up for election in her town. Each had 258 votes, according to unofficial results. She joins Dan Sugrue and John Wagener in the winner's circle.

Cermak and Allen Murvine were tied for the third of three seats in Island Lake, each with 576 votes. He joins Shannon Fox and Thea Morris as trustee-elects.

Illinois law says any random generator — coin flips, cutting cards or choosing straws, for example — can resolve election ties.

On Wednesday, both coins came out of the purse of Lake County Elections Administrator Cindy Pagano.

The Green Oaks tiebreaker was held first. Thomas was the only candidate from her town who attended.

Helander flipped a 1985 quarter onto a table topped by a blue cloth as witnesses, reporters and photographers stood by.

Thomas called heads before the toss, and when the quarter stopped rolling George Washington's profile was showing. The incumbent Green Oaks trustee, called the experience “unique.”

“It's exciting,” she said. “It will always be something I remember.”

Thomas said her quarter will go into a time capsule village leaders plan to bury.

Neither Cermak nor Murvine attended the gathering, but since trustees-elect Fox and Morris were there to witnesses the historic event, Helander asked them to stand in for the tied candidates.

After drawing pieces of paper to determine who would call heads or tails, Morris — representing Cermak — called tails and won.

Morris collected the 1995 quarter and promised to give it to Cermak.

Reached at his barbershop afterward, Cermak said he's happy to serve the people of Island Lake.

“I'm thankful to all the people who voted for me and my party,” Cermak said, referring to the slate that also included Murvine and Mary Piekarski.

Cermak now serves on the town's liquor commission and said he will resign that post.

The new trustees will take office in May.

Election ties are resolved differently across the country.

In Cave Creek, Ariz., two candidates for a city council seat cut cards to determine the winner in a 2009 race. In Jefferson City, Tenn., the city council broke a tie in the 2010 mayor's race by choosing a winner.

Earlier this year, a runoff election was held in Walhalla, S.C., after two candidates tied for a city council seat there.

Larry Frang, executive director of the Illinois Municipal League, said the random method of deciding electoral ties hasn't been debated in this state since he joined the organization in 1974.

The group, which represents Illinois' various cities, villages and towns, doesn't have a position on the issue. Individually, Frang doesn't see anything wrong with using chance to end a ballot deadlock.

Holding a runoff election would require taxpayer expense and force the affected board or council to operate with a vacancy until a winner is declared, Frang said.

And there's no guarantee a runoff would break a tie.

“You could get the same result,” he said.

Cindi Canary, executive director of a government watchdog group called the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said a coin flip probably is the fairest way to resolve a tie. The Jefferson City situation — in which the city council broke the tie — raised concerns for her.

“Ultimately, it is the people's right to elect the mayor,” Canary said. “If the people are deadlocked, it almost seems more democratic to put it to chance than to ask factionalized elected officials.”