Luck and write-ins lead to uncommon local election outcomes

Often overlooked, local elections can be filled with quirky characters, strange relationships and eccentric ideas. In multiple cities across the region, local elections also had unique outcomes.

Whether they chose the highest playing card or watched their names drawn from hats, some Northern Minnesota candidates saw their tied vote totals come down to luck last week.

State law endows the local canvassing board to break a dead heat “by lot,” which means using luck alone when the voters split evenly.

In the Carlton County city of Wrenshall, incumbent Mayor Gary Butala and challenger Jeff Bloom each earned 143 votes, with one write-in vote.

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Gary Butala

A neutral person drew Bloom’s name from the hat, making him the winner.

Lisa Johnson has been the Wrenshall city clerk since 2011 and couldn't recall a tie vote before.

“It seems so goofy for it to come down to that,” she said. “But that’s how they do it.”

But it isn’t final yet. Butala has requested a recount in the race, which will be completed by the county on Dec. 2.

Thirty miles away in Kettle River, city council candidates Patricia Lund and Laura Simi each received 33 votes for the second of two available seats.

The city used a different strategy to determine the winner there.

“We had a deck of cards with two through nine and they were mixed up and they were put on the table in front of everybody that was there, and both candidates drew a card,” City Administrator Kathy Lake explained.

With the highest card declared the winner, Lund drew a seven, and Simi drew a five.

Lund said she would have been happy with either outcome but is ready to serve.

“It was kind of a shocker I think, I’m not used to that,” she said. “And they were both low numbers. That was funny.”

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Cindy Lemm

A third tie of 27 votes apiece occurred in Federal Dam. The winner of a special election for two city council seats was also determined by a hat draw.

Between candidates Cindy Lemm and Linda Monette, Monette will join the council.

Carlton County Auditor-Treasurer Kevin DeVriendt noted the power of a single vote is demonstrated by these types of races.

But perhaps it’s those who choose not to vote at all who tip the scales more, he said.

In Wrenshall, 20 voters opted not to select a mayoral candidate, while in Kettle River, 35 voters didn’t weigh in on City Council.

Write-in campaigns can be a big gamble, but in some mayoral races in Northern Minnesota, they paid off.

International Falls’ mayoral contest had several names on the ballot and no incumbent after Mayor Harley Droba ran an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to challenge Republican legislator Roger Skraba. Write-in candidate Drake Dill likely received the most votes.

In a Facebook announcement, Dill thanked those who supported his campaign and said the “results are very humbling.”

Write-in votes for the I-Falls mayoral race totaled 1,600, and according to the city’s canvassing results, 1,581 of those write-ins went to Dill.

Fellow mayoral candidate Sharon Ball, who announced she was instead campaigning for Dill, said she was excited for the results.

“I never really wanted the position, but I wanted to see a lot of changes in our community, and I knew that Drake Dill could get it done,” Ball said.

“He was kind enough to thank me for all of my help after the results of the election came in, and I am very happy for him.”

Longtime Eveleth Mayor Robert Vlaisavljevich lost to write-in candidate, Adam Roen, who pulled in just over half of the city’s vote in a three-way race with Larry Bol, according to unofficial election results from the city.

Roen, 43, said he’s thought of running for a long time. By the time he decided this was the year he’d do it, the filing period had ended.

“There was a small group of people in Eveleth — business owners, citizens in general — that just started reaching out saying, ‘Hey, we heard that you might be interested. We would really love it if you would try to go in the write-in,’” he said.

So by Labor Day, his campaign was in full swing. Roen said he and his family knocked on every door in the city in September and October.

“At the end of the day, what everybody said — no matter what their personal concern was — was the fact that they felt like everything was stagnant,” he said. “That the city was not looking forward to how to make tomorrow better, they were just getting through everything and just moving on.”

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Ben Crosby for Mayor

Just a few minutes down the road in Gilbert, write-in candidate Ben Crosby came just short of beating former Mayor Karl Oberstar Jr. Write-ins, primarily for Crosby, made up 47% of the vote.

“[I’m a] little bit sad about it, but in the grand scheme of things I think we did our best,” Crosby said two days after the election. “I know write-in campaigns are inherently difficult.”

Unlike Roen, Crosby said he never wanted to get into politics. When he learned Oberstar was running unopposed, he decided someone had to run, and if no one else would, he’d give it a shot. Crosby intended to have his name on the ballot, but a discrepancy — that has since been fixed — between the filing dates in the city charter and state law caused him to miss the deadline.

“I feel pretty confident had I been on the ballot, we would have had a different outcome,” he said.

Roen and Crosby said it was a coincidence that two serious write-in campaigns took place in neighboring cities. But both pointed to community desires for change and increased transparency as reasons for running.

Roen said the sense of stagnancy is being felt across the East Range, and communities are looking for progress.

“The reason why his was close and mine ended up the way it did was people are looking for a difference, people are looking for a change,” he said. “And it just so happened to be that the names for those changes happened to be on a write-in ballot.”