Spring Lake Park’s mayor will be decided by chance, after last week’s election ended in a tie. The city will pick the winner’s name out of a bag on Monday evening.

The small north metro city's mayoral race ended in a draw between incumbent Robert Nelson and challenger Halyn Roth. Each candidate received exactly 1,401 votes.

Per state law, a city's canvasing board is required to "determine the results by a lot" in the case of a tie.

This essentially means Spring Lake Park will pull a name out of a hat, said City Administrator Daniel Buchholtz.

To ensure each candidate has an equal chance in the draw, the city plans to write their names on slips of paper and place the papers into film canisters, so they feel the same.

"Then we'll draw one of the canisters out of the bag, then open up and find out who the winner is," Buchholtz said.

The state law makes sense to the city administrator.

"I know some would say they'd like to see a runoff election, but running an election is very time consuming and expensive. It takes a lot of staff effort. This allows for a fair 50/50 way to break the tie," he said.

First-time candidate Halyn Roth is anxiously awaiting the Monday tiebreaker. He dislikes being at the mercy of chance.

"Everyone that I've talked to is not a fan of how we have to do this. I've heard from a lot of people saying 'I wish we could have a revote' or something like that," Roth said.

The city's canvasing board will review the election results with the Spring Lake Park City Council at the council's 5:30 p.m. Monday, November 9 meeting at Spring Lake Park City Hall.

The city has already scheduled a potential recount by hand for Tuesday, November 17 at the Anoka County Court House in the case the losing candidate requests one.

Roth said he plans to request a recount if he loses. Incumbent Mayor Nelson did not respond to requests for comment.

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.