Roll of the dice to decide final spot in Brighton Town Council race
Sep 22, 2023, 1:18 PM
(L) Heidi Westfall (Facebook), (R) Gavan Ganung (LinkedIn). Westfall and Ganung will know which one will advance to the General Election for the Town of Brighton City Council after the roll of a die.
(LinkedIn)
BRIGHTON, UT — A roll of the dice will decide which of two candidates gets the final spot in Brighton’s town council race, advancing them to the general election.
And this is not a figurative roll of the dice, it’s a literal roll of the dice.
State law dictates that when there’s a tie in an election, the winner is decided by “lot,” or in other words, by chance.
In Brighton, the lowest two vote-getters, Heidi Westfall and Gavan Ganung are tied with 34 votes each.
Town officials told KSL NewsRadio that each candidate will roll a die, and the person with the higher number wins.
The town only has 250 voters in total. Town Mayor Daniel Knopp is glad that there are enough candidates interested in serving in the small town in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
The other three candidates, Adrienne Aldous, Jeffery S. Bossard, and Lise Sorensen Brunhart, moved on to the General Election. But that final spot needs a tie break which has been scheduled for next Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, at 10 a.m.
“The tie break will take place in the offices of Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman,” Brighton officials said on the city’s website.
Juab County tiebreaker
Brighton isn’t the only town needing a tiebreaker.
Rocky Ridge, in Juab County, is planning a similar contest.
Nephi Laub and Wendy Allred each got 26 votes in the vote to move on to the General Election in the Rocky Ridge Town Council race.
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