Rare tiebreaking procedure keeps Klabnik on ballot for Winfield Township tax collector race
Marla Klabnik will advance to the general election as the Democratic candidate for Winfield Township’s tax collector, as the result of an unusual, rarely-used tiebreaking procedure, which was held on Friday, June 6 at the Butler County Bureau of Elections office.
The procedure, called the “casting of lots,” was made necessary after both Klabnik and Maisie Miller garnered exactly 26 write-in votes from Democratic-registered voters in the primary election held on May 20. Both candidates registered only as Republicans, meaning that Democratic voters would have had to write in the names of either candidate to cast a vote for them, since Pennsylvania is a “closed primary” state.
“We made them count the write-ins, like, three times, just to be sure,” said Chantell McCurdy, director of the Bureau of Elections. “We were like, ‘Please, one of them have one more.’”
As the Democratic candidate, Klabnik will advance to the general election ballot to face Miller, who defeated her in the Republican primary by 351 votes to 202.
Maisie Miller appeared at the Election Bureau office to draw her own number. Appearing in Marla’s place to draw her number was her husband, Winfield Township supervisor Matthew Klabnik.
As part of the procedure, McCurdy held a bag containing ten balls numbered 1 through 10. The candidate that picked the lower-numbered ball would be the one to go onto the Democratic ballot in November’s general election.
It looked bleak for Klabnik after he went first and drew the eight ball, until Miller went up and picked out the number nine.
Had Miller pulled the low number instead, she would have proceeded to the November election on both the Republican and Democratic ticket.
“Every county in Pennsylvania has to follow this process if there is a tie,” McCurdy said. “Because it happens so few and far between, most counties do not have them every year.”
According to McCurdy, the last time that Butler County held a tiebreaking drawing of lots was in 2021, to decide an Adams Township supervisor race.
