No more coin flips
Those of us from Groton remember well that our
candidate for State Representative was chosen by a coin flip. At some point I
spoke with Susan Bysiewicz about that method of breaking a tie, which is only
used in primary elections. I suggested to her that it would make more sense to
give the win to the endorsed candidate, since the party nomination should mean
something.
Imagine my surprise when I
got a phone call today from her aide (I can't remember her exact title),
Michelle Gilman, to bring me up to date on legislative efforts to get rid of the
coin toss. Now, that's a good politician. I only dimly remember raising the
issue, but Bysiewicz apparently made a note of
it.
Right now, the chosen solution
appears to be run off between the candidates. In Groton's case there would have
been one less candidate, so it would be real run off. In the more typical case,
it would really be a do over. The cost would be borne one half by the state and
one half by the affected locality. I didn't ask what would happen if the
district straddled two towns.
I wasn't
wedded to my own idea, so I find this solution perfectly satisfactory. The coin
flip left a bad taste in a lot of mouths, and probably would have no matter how
it landed.
Posted: Thursday - February 08, 2007 at 08:40 PM