Friday, November 05, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Queen rules in county race

Draw of face card breaks tie, gives 78-year-old spot on White Pine commission

White Pine County Commission candidates Ray Urrizaga, 78, left, and Bob Swetich, 65, shake hands after drawing cards to break their electoral tie. Urrizaga drew a queen to defeat Swetich, who drew a seven. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

ELY -- Ray Urrizaga turned over the queen of clubs. Bob Swetich said "whoa," and flipped up the seven of diamonds. The two men shook hands.

And with that, a choice that split White Pine County voters right down the middle was settled Thursday by two men in blue jeans and a $1.99 deck of Streamline playing cards, bought the day before at Ely's V & S Variety store.

Urrizaga and Swetich have lived in the county for most of their lives, and each man received exactly 1,847 votes on Election Day. By drawing the high card, Urrizaga broke the tie and won a four-year term on the County Commission.

"I don't believe in gambling," Urrizaga said afterward. "That's why, this here, I thought I'd lose because I'm not a gambling man."

"Hey," said Swetich, a self-described casual gambler. "This is the only way to do it in this state."

In fact, it's the law.

Nevada Revised Statute dictates that in the event of a tie, elections for certain seats must be determined by drawing lots.

White Pine County Clerk Donna Bath said it doesn't happen often, but when it does, a deck of cards seems to be the preferred method in Nevada.

Thursday's draw was held in a county annex across the street from the large, white courthouse that dominates the center of this town of about 5,500 people, 250 miles north of Las Vegas.

About a dozen people turned out to watch the proceedings, including one man who narrated what was happening into his cell phone.

The two candidates sat at a folding table across from Bath and Deputy District Attorney Kevin Briggs, as the spectators crowded in around them.

"If this isn't an indication that your vote counts, I don't know what message this sends," Commissioner Paul Johnson said.

First Bath read the rules: Aces were high and the top suit was spades, followed by diamonds, clubs and hearts. Then she instructed Briggs to unseal the deck and "remove the jokers."

"I thought we were allowed to stay in the room," Johnson deadpanned with a sideways glance at his fellow commissioners.

As Briggs shuffled, an audience member called out, "Let's see some tricks."

The cards were mixed and cut and spread face down in front of the men. Urrizaga said, "Let the good Lord decide," and picked first.

A moment later, Swetich flipped over his card, turned to Urrizaga and said, "You got the luck of the draw. Congratulations."

He and his wife were all smiles as they left the county annex. "It's the law," Mary Swetich said. "That's how it's supposed to be."

Though he has the legal right to request a recount of the election results, Swetich, 65, said he would not do so. The seven of diamonds was as much proof as he needed to see.

Bath will be happy to hear that, although she doesn't think anything would change if the votes were recounted.

"We were prepared for a presidential recount, not a county commission recount," she said. "We were ready for the FBI to come in."

To get that way, Bath and her staff verified 100 percent of the ballots cast on the new touch-screen voting machines, even though the secretary of state's office required verification of only 3 percent of electronic ballots.

And instead of reviewing only a portion of the mail-in ballots, Bath and her staff counted all of them by hand, twice, before feeding them into a machine for the official count.

"Were very, very confident that these election results are good numbers," Bath said.

Watching Thursday's draw with keen interest was former County Commissioner Wayne Cameron.

In the 1988 Democratic primary, Cameron finished in a tie with challenger Bunny Hill.

Hill didn't want to see the outcome determined by a card game, so county officials decided to break the deadlock by drawing a ballot at random from one of the precinct boxes. There was just one small problem: The ballot pulled from the box was blank. "Everyone was just completely dumbfounded," Cameron said.

A subsequent recount gave the election to Hill by a single vote.

"I was so close to being in that same predicament," Cameron said of Thursday's game of high card. "I just wanted to see how it was handled."

For his part, Urrizaga, 78, said he would have preferred to see the election decided at the polls, especially when his Democratic opponent was a man he has known "since he was a baby in diapers."

But that's how it goes, the Republican rancher said with a shrug as he zipped up his jacket and pulled on his worn winter hat. "We done the best we could."