Coin toss used to decide Republican primary race — and the victor is a Democrat

A tied primary election in Oregon was allowed to be decided by a coin toss.

The Oregon Capital Chronicle revealed that on Thursday, a heavily Democratic district in the northwest of the state in Eugene came down to a 50/50 chance. The Eighth House District didn't even have a Republican officially in the race, but there were about 103 Republican names listed as write-in candidates.

Technically speaking, the two highest vote-getters from Republican write-in votes were for Democrats Lisa Fragala and Doyle Canning, the former is her party's official nominee.

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"Under state law, election officials needed to decide 'by lot,'" the report said. "Past ties have been settled by rolling dice, but in this case, election officials decided a coin toss was the fairest outcome."

So, the Eugene coin toss determined the Republican choice. The candidates weren't present, but the report described proxies and "government nerds" who were present to witness the state's deputy elections director pull a quarter out and flip it into the air.

The quarter landed tails up, which was a victory for Canning.

There's a problem with that, however. Canning lost the Democratic nomination in the election. The state has so-called "Sore loser" laws that block a candidate from accepting the nomination from any other party after losing.

The report said the next solution is for Republican precinct committee members to choose a nominee to appear on the ballot.

Canning burst into hysterics upon hearing the news.

“Even though we’re talking about seven votes, it’s great that we can all be so confident that the laws and procedures are so dutifully followed,” she said.

“The lesson here for any political party is to field a candidate,” Canning encouraged. “I’m sure, had the Republicans fielded a candidate, they would have gotten more than seven votes.”

Read the full report here.