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| People voting in the Philippines |
Who would have thought that in a democratic country a politician would be elected through a flip of a coin, but that is exactly what happened in a city in the Philippines, according to a statement released by election officials in the Philippines.
In the era of high technology electronic voting, election authorities in the Philippines announced a tie between two candidates for mayor, and decided to break the tie in a decidedly old school way, by throwing a coin.
When all the votes were counted after the election on Monday, the two men running for mayor of the city of San Teodoro, Marvic Feraren and Boyet Py, received 3,236 votes each.
To break the impasse, it was decided to use a coin flip, Reny Pagilagan, acting election officer of the city said.
The Philippine Commission on Elections permits coin tosses as a way to break ties.
Therefore, the two rivals faced off inside a circle of tables in a room with bare walls, taking turns to flick the coin to the ground.
At the end of the contest, Feraren, who is the son of a former mayor, was declared the winner.
The result was received without backlash in San Teodoro, located in the province of Oriental Mindoro.
“It is interesting that the candidates agreed to decide the election using the coin flip. If this happened in the United States it would have ended up in the Supreme Court of the United States, just like the Gore-Bush Florida fight, and then, when the courts decide, no one is happy,” Tracy Cunningham, 55, of Cranston, Rhodew Island told YourJewishNews.com after learning about the man who became mayor after a coin toss.