A magistrate race in Robertson County, Kentucky came down to the literal flip of a coin this week after Republican Benny Ray Renner and Democrat Kristen Fryman each pulled in exactly 91 votes. With neither candidate able to claim an outright win in the Magistrate D-2 contest, officials turned to a coin toss to settle it, and Fryman walked away the winner.
A Dead-Even Tie Forces a Coin Toss
Renner and Fryman finished tied at 91 votes apiece in Tuesday's election, according to WKRC. With no other way to separate the two candidates, a coin flip decided the winner of the judicial race, the station reported. Fryman came out on top Tuesday night, according to the Robertson County Clerk, per the same report.
A Kentucky Secretary of State results page tied to the race shows zero reported votes for either candidate, a discrepancy with the 91-vote totals described above. The available information does not explain that gap or confirm the final certified numbers, and it is not clear from what's been reported whether the result has since gone through a canvass or certification process.
Not the First Kentucky Tiebreaker Decided by a Coin
Robertson County's nail-biter joins a small but recurring list of Kentucky local races that have ended up decided by chance rather than a clear vote margin. Earlier this year, a Union County District 4 magistrate Republican primary saw Ehren Schaffter and Dakota Jones deadlocked at 165 votes each after an improperly cast ballot was removed from the count, according to Fox 56. Schaffter called tails, the station reported, and the silver dollar used for the toss landed in his favor.
A similar scene played out in Logan County, where two Democratic primary candidates each received 127 votes, as reported by WKYT. Logan County Clerk Scottie Harper had the candidates choose envelopes marked heads and tails before tossing the coin, which landed on tails, handing the win to Boyce Coles, according to that report.
Local Races Have a History of Ties in the Commonwealth
Coin flips have also decided municipal races in Kentucky beyond the magistrate level. In Hanson, Annamary LeCornu and Felicia Greer tied at 104 votes for the final seat on the city commission, and a coin toss landed on tails to make LeCornu the winner, according to the Messenger-Inquirer. The same report notes that a 2010 tie in the Madisonville Ward 3 race between Raymond Marion and Nora Stewart was broken by a quarter flip, which favored Marion.
Those earlier cases underscore that Robertson County's tied race, while striking, fits a pattern that has occasionally popped up in Kentucky's smaller local contests, where a handful of votes — or, in this case, an exact tie — can leave the outcome resting on pure chance rather than a clear electoral mandate.
