Kentucky Magistrate Race Tied 91-91 Is Decided By A Coin Toss

A Kentucky election came down to a single quarter after both candidates finished with exactly 91 votes for a local office.

The sheriff supplied the coin, the county clerk flipped it, and the candidate who got first call picked heads. It landed tails.

That gave Democrat Kristen Fryman the Robertson County magistrate seat over Republican Benny Ray Renner, according to WEKU.

The race was for the county’s 2nd Magisterial District, with the winner taking a seat on Robertson County’s fiscal court.

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Heads Or Tails

Fryman said Renner got to call the toss because his name appeared first on the ballot in the magistrate race. In this case, the order of the names mattered again after the counting was over.

Renner called heads, leaving Fryman with tails as the county clerk flipped the sheriff’s quarter to decide the contest. WEKU reported that the coin came from the sheriff’s pocket when officials needed something to settle the race.

After the toss, Fryman joked that she had won the election and come away 25 cents richer in the process.

“We laughed about it, and I left here as the winner and with the quarter in my pocket,” Fryman said. She told the outlet she had never envisioned winning that way, but she and Renner could laugh about it.

The two candidates received 182 votes between them, and a single additional vote for either one would have broken the tie. Instead, Kentucky’s election rules provided a way to settle the contest after neither candidate finished ahead.

A Seat That Controls The Budget

Despite the name fiscal court, the body functions as the county’s legislature and handles decisions about local spending and taxes. That makes the seat part of the board responsible for setting Robertson County’s budget and its local tax rates.

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Fryman’s win preserved a Democratic majority on the county board, in a county where Republican candidates have dominated higher-profile races. A coin worth 25 cents ended up deciding who would help set tax rates for the entire county.

President Donald Trump carried Robertson County with about 80% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election. Republican Andy Barr took nearly 70% of the county’s vote in this year’s Senate race as he won his seat, while Renner needed just one more vote to take his district.

Not The First Time In Kentucky

Fryman joins a list of Kentucky candidates whose local elections were settled by a coin after a tied count. Earlier this year, a Republican primary in Union County also ended in a tie that officials settled by coin toss. Fox 56 reported that Union County used a silver dollar instead of a borrowed quarter.

A tied Democratic primary for magistrate in Logan County was also settled by a coin toss, according to local reports, and city races have come down to a coin as well, including a city commission seat in Hanson. In Madisonville, a tied city council contest in 2010 also went to a coin toss.

For voters who skipped the polls in Robertson County this year, the result is a reminder that every single vote can matter.