Unofficial election results show tie in Mount Clemens school board race
The results of Tuesday's election still are being certified, but if the totals in one local school board race in Macomb County hold, two candidates will be in a tie.
Per the unofficial results , there is a tie for the last of four seats on the Mount Clemens Community School Board, where candidates Alex Bronson and Rashidah Hammond both received 3,495 votes .
The top three vote-getters were incumbents Jeanine Walker and Earl Rickman, and Paul Sheppard, per the unofficial results. The current terms of those school board seats expire Dec. 31.
If there's still a tie between Bronson and Hammond, there's a process in state law to determine the winner of that fourth seat: The Macomb County Board of Canvassers would schedule a day for the deadlocked candidates to come before the county clerk, who prepares as many slips of paper as there are people. The clerk writes the word "elected" on as many slips of paper as there are offices to be filled and "not elected" on the remaining slips, according to the law.
The slips are then folded and put in a box. Each candidate draws a slip from the box. The candidate who selects the "elected" slip is the winner. The loser can request a recount.
If a tie exists once the election is certified, it wouldn't be the first time that a tie had to be broken in a race in Mount Clemens. In fact, the county seat has a quirky little history with election ties and recounts.
"It's a small city, and it's easier to get into that position," Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said Thursday.
In November 2007, Gary Blash and Jack Johns tied for a seat on the Mount Clemens City Commission, each garnering 806 votes, in what was believed to be a first for the city, officials told the Free Press at the time.
Blash won a coin flip and picked first and ended up pulling the slip with the word "elected" out of a box. He won and took office.
Later, Johns requested a recount. Johns ended up netting one more vote than Blash in the recount and won the race with 807 votes to Blash's 806 votes, forcing the seat to change hands.
During the same 2007 election, there was a tie for a Grosse Pointe City Council seat in Wayne County, which was determined in the same fashion. The loser requested a recount, too, but withdrew after the recount revealed yet another tie — in that case with one more vote for each candidate than the election showed.
In August 2016, two votes separated the winner and second-place finisher for a partial term on the Mount Clemens City Commission. Bill Ford won the seat, with Laura Fournier coming in second. Fournier requested a recount , but Ford still ended up winning by two votes, though each candidate received one more vote than on Election Day, according to a prior Free Press .
According to the county elections department, there was a recount in the Mount Clemens mayor's race in 2013, too, though the vote separation was by more than 60 votes and the results did not change from Election Day.
Forlini said he remembered one tie in his four years as county clerk: It was for a precinct delegate position and the candidates didn't show up for the tiebreaker.
The tie was in the August primary of this year for a Republican precinct delegate in Sterling Heights, with each candidate receiving 99 votes, according to elections department information.
If the Mount Clemens school board race is tied in the end, Forlini said he would anticipate the candidates coming in for the tiebreaker as the clerk's office and elections department are located in Mount Clemens.
Forlini said nothing will happen regarding the race, however, until all of Tuesday's results are certified and the results still show a tie.
It's possible the results could change, for example, if there are any military and overseas ballots that are outstanding. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Wednesday that there were about 6,000 outstanding military and overseas ballots that will be added to the unofficial results if they are postmarked by Election Day and received by Nov. 12.
The county's Board of Canvassers has 14 days after the election to certify the results. Forlini said in 2020, the board finished certifying that election 17 minutes shy of the midnight deadline on the 14th day.
For this election, he said — and for a couple of the prior elections — Forlini provided sworn assistants from his different offices to assist the county's Board of Canvassers.
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