USA: dice decides the election of the village president

It is not a rare thing that one mentions “coalition games of chance“, “betting for the last vote“ or “the fall of the dice“ in the context of elections and election campaigns. These are mostly all cliches of politicians and the press. A small village in the US American Federal State of Wisconsin has however made used of these phrases in practice. The election of the next village president was decided on by a dice!

The US community Sister Bay is dozy and cosy – it has generally nothing to do with games of chance. The small village which is situated on a headland in Lake Michigan has hardly anything to offer except a beer garden and its grass where goats graze. Their daily routine is streamed live in the whole world. A picturesque view of the large lake, some cosy corners in the water and a small yacht marina are further highlights. However, all this would not attract a large media interest to Sister Bay.

However, the community has now attracted the interest of the media because of its unconventional choice of village president. For example, der Spiegel writes (of course jokingly about a “democratic innovation”. Local newspapers and those locally responsible are more pragmatic: the process was needed and was done transparently.

What did exactly happen? Why was the election in Sister Bay left to a choice of dice?

How the election came about to be by dice

At the beginning of April 2023 512 inhabitants of Sister Bay came together to vote for their new village president. Each of the two candidates got half of the votes: 256 for Nate Bell and 256 for Rob Zoschke.

The election office manager told the local news station NBC 26 that all voting participants had voted mainly for one or the other. The round 70 inhabitants who did not vote would have made the difference. The community now had a clear draw.

The solution was (to say the least) somewhat unconventional: they decided to let the dice decide.

The process was very simple

Each candidate was allocated a female canvasser. The women were tasked with rolling the dice on behalf of Nate Bell and Rob Zoschke (at that time the incumbent president) respectively. The dice was thrown during a live transmission on Zoom. Those responsible wanted everything to be completely transparent.

All the interested inhabitants of Sister Bay could clearly see that Nate Bell had won the election. His canvasser threw a six on the dice. Zoschke only got a two and he had to resign from the office. Bell took over as his successor on the 18th. April 2023.

And what the candidates and the election officers say about the dice throwing?

Most of the voters agreed that under these circumstances throwing the dice was the best option to choose. The canvassers stated that the system of using a coin or drawing slips of paper with the names could have been considered. However, the throwing of the dice was the fairest solution.

Rob Zoschke who lost the election also had some comments: the process of using a dice made complete sense. He even kept one of the dices as a souvenir. He also suggested that in the future the new president could perhaps organise a charity event where the choice per dice is taken up as an idea. Nate Bell has still not given his reaction.

Conclusion

Image source: https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/konzept-vielfalt-abzeichen-aufkleber-8846667/