A little-known Missouri city council race has ended in a tie, and the winner will be picked by a random draw, leaving the residents’ representation up to chance.
Chris Kyle challenged incumbent Bill Otto in a St. Charles City Council election to represent Ward 1, which includes residents along the Missouri River. The race was nonpartisan, meaning the candidates did not run on a specific party platform.
Kyle is a father and has been an elementary school teacher for more than 20 years. He ran a family-centric campaign focused on quality education and public safety.
Otto has been Ward 1’s councilman for nearly three years. He’s a Navy veteran and retired air traffic controller with a wife and six children. One of his key policies is preventing any new developments in the city from negatively impacting residents.
Kyle and Otto both received 572 votes in the recent election — an extremely rare feat. Ward 1 serves 4,755 registered voters, according to local outlet Fox 2 now.
There are about 900 municipal elections in Missouri every April, and there have been at least four ties this year, Missouri Municipal League Deputy Director Stuart Haynes said, according to an article from local outlet KSDK.
The only way to figure out the winner of the Ward 1 election is by random draw, according to the city of St. Charles.
"In accordance with the Charter, the City Council will formally canvass the election results at its next regular meeting and determine the outcome by lot.
“The names of both candidates will be placed into a container, and one name will be randomly drawn to determine the winner, who will be declared the next Ward 1 Councilmember,” the city said in a statement shared by KSDK.
Otto said the drawing is “demeaning,” telling KSDK, “to put all this work into these two campaigns and for us to pull out a name to be a winner is just, it may be the only answer, but it doesn't feel like it's the best answer somehow.”
During an interview with The Independent, Otto said he supports seeking a court order to complete a full count of all Ward 1 votes, rather than the sample count used to certify the election, “so we really see who won this race.”
When asked if he would still support a lawsuit to try to bring a full count of the votes if he won the random draw, Otto said, “I wouldn't be the loser, so I don't know that I could bring the lawsuit. If my opponent brought it, I would support whatever results came out of that. And he said the same thing to me.”
Poking fun at their situation, Otto shared an edited photo on Thursday of he and Kyle playing a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” with the tagline, “Only in St. Charles.” He captioned the Facebook post, “This one is well done & funny. Of course, I’m winning!”
"It's odd,” Kyle told KDSK. “It's a little wild and tough to, I guess, comprehend, but I also respect that the city is following their procedures, following their charter as they should.”
In a Facebook post Friday, Kyle said the tie and random draw to follow, “really shows how much every single vote matters.”
The Independent has reached out to Kyle for comment.
St. Charles County Director of Elections Kurt Bahr said there was a strong turnout for the election, but noted that if more chose to vote in the race between Otto and Kyle, the two candidates would not have been put in this situation.
“For this particular race in St. Charles City, there were 25 voters who voted a ballot who were Ward 1 residents who chose not to vote in this election. And so had those 25 made a choice, then the outcome would have been known," Bahr told KSDK.
The random drawing will take place on Tuesday and the winner will be sworn in at the same meeting.
"We understand this is an unusual circumstance, and we are committed to following the Charter while ensuring the process is fair, transparent, and conducted in public,” the city said.
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