You know there is something that just feels right about living in a state like Nevada and knowing that one of the preferred methods in our constitution for deciding tied elections is high card draw. In one of our seventeen counties, Eureka, there was a tie in November for the position of County Clerk-Treasurer (Yes, we do have to double-up some of our positions in the small counties – what we refer to as the "cow" counties, even though Eureka is known more for mining.) This tie probably would not have occured had one of the candidates not asked for a recount. As a result, a couple ballots were added in and one ballot where both candidates were marked was allowed since the voter's intent was clear (He/she had written "Oops" next to one of the candidates.)
Four new sealed decks were brought out on the day of the drawing. Jackie Berg, the incumbent, eliminated one deck and her opponent, Carrie Wright, eliminated another. A third deck was eliminated by a county commissioner, and then the remaining deck was ceremoniously shuffled and fanned by the manager of the Owl Club, a fine gaming establishment, in Eureka (Um, it's both the name of the county and the town, you see.) The incumbent ended up winning the draw with an eight of hearts; her GOP challenger drew only a three of hearts. Many Nevadans were delighted by the account in our newspapers here and here.
Now, we are quite happy with our bishop, thank you very much, but I am curious, so I plan to look into Nevada's canons just to see how we handle a tie vote for bishop should it occur in the future. I mean we have a tradition of gambling to select representatives in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The high priest of Israel carried the "Urim and the Thummim" in his breastplate for tough decisions. Honestly, all they were was a pair of fancy dice (Ex. 28:30; Nu. 27:21). When selecting an apostle to replace Judas, the eleven apostles drew lots – who knows, a more careful look at the Koine Greek might reveal they actually did use a deck of cards to choose Matthias (Ac. 1:26). Instead of endless balloting for a bishop, and counting votes by order, we might as well welcome her/him to Nevada with a traditional high card draw. It's entertaining and, more importantly, it's biblical.
