# How a Tie Vote Is Broken [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] ends precisely at the question it cannot answer. Six states' only automatic recount trigger is an **exact tie** — Alaska, Maine, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah — so in those states the arithmetic that fires the recount is the same arithmetic the recount is guaranteed to confirm. When it does, something other than counting has to produce a winner. This map is that something. The queue item that commissioned the map predicted that the tie-break would be the one stage of the whole electoral process where **the law itself specifies a random procedure**, and therefore the cleanest available test of what a legislature does when it admits that no amount of counting will settle the matter. That is right for roughly twenty-eight states and it is the reason the subject is worth a page. It is also, on examination, the smaller half of the story, because of three findings. **First, the published binary is wrong in the same way the recount binary was wrong.** Every survey of this subject sorts the states into *chance* and *another election*. A third family sits between them and is never printed: states where **a named human being chooses the winner.** Montana's governor appoints one of the two tied candidates to the seat — including a tied seat on the state supreme court (Mont. Code Ann. § 13-16-503). Tennessee's State Election Commission "shall cast the deciding vote," and for a tied U.S. House seat the **Governor** casts it (Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-8-111). Nevada's legislature elects one of the tied candidates by joint vote of both houses (Nev. Rev. Stat. § 293.400(1)(a)). West Virginia's county canvassers choose, with the Governor deciding if they fail inside thirty days (W. Va. Code § 3-6-12). In these states the tie is not conceded to chance at all; it is handed to an officeholder with a party. **Second, and the structural finding: the method is a function of the office, not the state.** This is the same shape [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] found one build ago for contest forums, and here two statutes do it in a single section. Tennessee's § 2-8-111 routes five classes of office to five different deciders. Nevada's § 293.400 does it by office **and by stage of the election** — a tied primary for a U.S. Senate seat is resolved by the Secretary of State **drawing lots**, and the identical tie for the identical seat at the general election is resolved by **a joint vote of both legislative houses**. Same seat, same candidates, same arithmetic; the method flips with the calendar. **Third, "by lot" is a delegation, not a procedure.** The statute commands randomness and almost never names the randomizer, so the mechanism is invented by the canvassing authority on the day: film canisters in a bowl, a playing-card draw with suits ranked in advance, coffee straws, a board-game piece from a bag, dice that had to be re-rolled twice. Only Idaho and Iowa write the instrument into law. See [[Determination by Lot]]. > [!note] How to read this crosswalk > `■` marks a part · `▸` marks a family, tier or lane · `⚡` marks what the tie does first · `◇` marks who decides · `🎲` marks a resolution by chance · `🗳` marks a resolution by a further election · `👤` marks a resolution by a named officeholder's choice · `⊘` marks a duty or provision that does not exist · `✱` marks the structural point of a block · `⚑` marks something **live in 2026** · `†` marks **a figure taken from the statute against a tracker that disagrees** · `◈` marks **a count that is a definitional artifact rather than a fact**, explained in the Notes · `[bracketed]` notes are dated caveats. Everything inside the fence is a **statute, a method or a state** — with two exceptions, both named in Part E because they are the live 2026 record, **no current officeholder is named on this map**, by design, so it stays true as seats turn over on 3 November 2026. ``` HOW A TIE VOTE IS BROKEN — three families, not two, and the method is a function of the office (as of 8 October 2026) │ Legend: ▸ family / lane ⚡ what happens first ◇ who decides │ 🎲 chance 🗳 another election 👤 a named officeholder chooses │ ⊘ does not exist ⚑ live in 2026 ✱ the structural point │ ◈ count is a definitional artifact † statute over tracker │ │ THE ONE-LINE VERSION: EVERY FIFTY-STATE TABLE OF THIS SUBJECT PRINTS TWO │ COLUMNS — CHANCE AND A NEW ELECTION. THERE IS A THIRD, AND IN IT A SINGLE │ PARTISAN OFFICEHOLDER PICKS THE WINNER OF A TIED ELECTION. See Part A ▸ 3, │ then Part B before trusting ANY one-method-per-state table including this one. │ ■ PART A — THE THREE FAMILIES (and the fourth state of having no rule at all) │ ├─▸ FAMILY 1. 🎲 CHANCE — "BY LOT" ................ ~28 states ◈ see Note 1 │ ⚡ the canvass shows equal totals; in 7 states a recount runs first │ ◇ an election officer or canvassing board, with NO discretion as to outcome │ → the worked statutes: │ VIRGINIA ....... electoral board for local office; STATE BOARD for General │ Assembly, U.S. CONGRESS and PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS │ [Va. Code § 24.2-674] │ PENNSYLVANIA ... by lot at NOON ON THE THIRD FRIDAY after the election — │ the only statutory clock-time found [25 P.S. § 3168] │ IDAHO .......... "a toss of a coin" before the Secretary of State within │ TWO DAYS of the canvass [Idaho Code § 34-1216] │ IOWA ........... names DRAWN FROM PAPER before the canvassers │ [Iowa Code § 50.44] │ HAWAII ......... by lot, chief election officer (state) or county clerk; │ the 2019 Act 136 rewrite replaced an older formula │ [Haw. Rev. Stat. § 11-157] ⚑ USED TWICE IN 2026 — Part E │ WASHINGTON ..... "by public lot" by the official issuing the certificate │ [Wash. Rev. Code § 29A.60.221] │ ALABAMA ........ Secretary of State draws lots PUBLICLY, IN FRONT OF THE │ GOVERNOR [Ala. Code § 17-12-23] │ also AZ · CA · CO · FL · IL · KS · KY · MI · MN · MS · NM · OH · OK · OR │ · UT · WI · WY, and AK · NE · ND · SD after a recount │ ✱ ONLY TWO OF THESE STATUTES NAME THE INSTRUMENT. Idaho says coin, Iowa │ says paper; the rest say "lot" and stop. The randomizer is therefore an │ administrative invention made on the day — see Part C, where the list of │ what has actually been used includes dice that failed twice. │ ✱ THIS IS THE ONLY FAMILY THAT CANNOT BE WON BY THE BETTER-RESOURCED │ CAMPAIGN. It is also the only one that produces a winner on a known date │ with no further voting, which is the entire argument for it. │ ├─▸ FAMILY 2. 🗳 ANOTHER ELECTION ................. ~12 states ◈ see Note 1 │ ⚡ the tie voids the result, or is treated as a vacancy │ ◇ THE VOTERS, a second time — the only family that returns the question │ to the electorate rather than taking it away │ → ARKANSAS ....... special runoff FOUR WEEKS after the election │ [Ark. Code Ann. § 7-5-704] │ → GEORGIA ........ runoff 28 days later [Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-501] │ → LOUISIANA ...... runoff the FOURTH SATURDAY after the tie │ [La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18:512] │ → MASSACHUSETTS .. runoff the FOURTH MONDAY OF NOVEMBER │ [Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 50, § 2; Mass. Const. amend. art. XV] │ → RHODE ISLAND ... runoff the TENTH DAY after the tie is declared │ [R.I. Gen. Laws § 17-3-3] │ → SOUTH CAROLINA . runoff TWO WEEKS after the election │ [S.C. Code Ann. § 7-13-2210] │ → CONNECTICUT .... recount first; special election THREE WEEKS later │ [Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 9-311b, 9-332] │ → DELAWARE ....... the tie is TREATED AS A VACANCY; special election │ [Del. Code tit. 15, §§ 5708, 7101] │ → VERMONT ........ recount; then a COURT-ORDERED runoff within three weeks │ [Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 17, § 2602k] │ → also IN · ME · MD │ ✱ THE COST OF THIS FAMILY IS A WHOLE ELECTION, AND THE BENEFIT IS THE ONLY │ DEMOCRATIC ANSWER AVAILABLE. Both are why the family is small: a state │ weighing finality against legitimacy has usually chosen finality. │ ├─▸ FAMILY 3. 👤 A NAMED OFFICEHOLDER CHOOSES ..... THE MISSING CATEGORY │ ⚡ nothing random, nothing re-voted │ ◇ A PERSON OR BODY WITH A PARTY, EXERCISING A CHOICE │ → MONTANA ........ "the governor shall appoint one of those candidates to │ the office" — for a MEMBER OF THE LEGISLATURE, a DISTRICT │ JUDGE, or a JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT. The Secretary │ of State merely certifies the totals to the Governor. │ [Mont. Code Ann. § 13-16-503] │ ✱ A TIED MONTANA SUPREME COURT ELECTION IS FILLED BY THE │ GOVERNOR'S PICK. The judiciary's one check against │ executive appointment — standing for election — fails │ closed, into appointment, at an exact tie. │ → TENNESSEE ...... the STATE ELECTION COMMISSION "shall cast the deciding │ vote," with four exceptions by office — see Part B │ [Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-8-111] │ → NEVADA ......... general election, federal/statewide/district offices and │ district judges: "the Legislature shall, by joint vote of │ both houses, elect one of those persons to fill the │ office" [Nev. Rev. Stat. § 293.400(1)(a)] │ → NEW HAMPSHIRE .. state senate ties: joint vote of both houses │ [N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 660:24; N.H. Const. pt. 2, art. 34] │ → WEST VIRGINIA .. the county canvassers choose a winner; IF THEY FAIL │ WITHIN 30 DAYS THE GOVERNOR DECIDES [W. Va. Code § 3-6-12] │ → MISSOURI ....... hybrid: the GOVERNOR orders a special election, but the │ candidates MAY AGREE to settle it by lot instead │ [Mo. Rev. Stat. § 115.517] │ → TEXAS .......... hybrid: recount, then special election, OR lot by │ agreement, OR one candidate simply withdraws │ [Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 2.002] │ ✱ THIS FAMILY IS WHY A ONE-METHOD-PER-STATE TABLE MISLEADS. A tracker │ sorting states into "chance" and "new election" has nowhere to put │ Montana, and the usual resolution is to file it under "other" or to │ print the method for whichever office the tracker happened to check. │ ✱ AND IT INVERTS THE QUEUE ITEM'S PREMISE FOR THESE STATES. The premise │ was that a tie is where the law concedes that process cannot produce an │ answer. Montana, Tennessee and Nevada concede nothing: they treat the │ tie as having TRANSFERRED the appointment power, from the electorate to │ a governor, a commission, or a legislature. The electorate did not fail │ to decide — it decided, exactly evenly, and the statute reads that as a │ vacancy to be filled. │ └─▸ FAMILY 0. ⊘ NO TIE PROVISION AT ALL ........... NEW JERSEY · NEW YORK ⊘ no statute names a method for a tied election → NEW JERSEY ..... the remedies are the general recount and contest provisions [N.J. Rev. Stat. §§ 19:28-1 et seq., 19:29-1 et seq.] → NEW YORK ....... no tie statute; what exists is a MANDATORY RECOUNT at a margin of 20 votes or fewer, or 0.5% or less [N.Y. Elec. Law § 9-208] ✱ A MANDATORY RECOUNT IS NOT A TIE-BREAKER. New York's provision guarantees that a tie will be re-counted and confirmed, and then says nothing. The route out is a court — which is to say the one state with the largest legislature in this family resolves a tied legislative election by litigation on a judge's calendar — see the state election contest crosswalk, linked below. ■ PART B — THE FINDING: THE METHOD IS A FUNCTION OF THE OFFICE │ │ Two statutes do the whole taxonomy in one section. Read either one and the │ idea of "a state's tie-break method" stops being a coherent unit. │ ├─▸ TENNESSEE, Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-8-111 — FIVE OFFICES, FIVE DECIDERS │ default ................ 👤 the STATE ELECTION COMMISSION casts the │ deciding vote │ county office .......... 👤 the county legislative body casts it — │ 🗳 OR calls a runoff BY RESOLUTION │ municipal office ....... 👤 the municipal legislative body casts it — │ 🗳 OR calls a runoff BY RESOLUTION │ U.S. HOUSE ............. 👤 THE GOVERNOR casts the deciding vote │ U.S. SENATE ............ 🗳 the election is VOID; the Governor orders a │ special election │ GOVERNOR ............... 👤 the GENERAL ASSEMBLY in joint convention │ ✱ TWO FEDERAL SEATS ON THE SAME BALLOT, TIED THE SAME NIGHT, GET OPPOSITE │ TREATMENT: the House seat is filled by one person's choice and the Senate │ seat is voided and re-run. Nothing in the statute explains the asymmetry, │ and the Senate rule is the more cautious of the two by a wide margin. │ ✱ NOTE ALSO THAT TWO OF THE FIVE ROUTES ARE ELECTIVE: a Tennessee county or │ municipal body may cast the deciding vote OR order a runoff, and the │ choice between a self-interested vote and an election is made by │ RESOLUTION, after the tie, by the body that stands to benefit. │ ├─▸ NEVADA, Nev. Rev. Stat. § 293.400 — BY OFFICE, AND ALSO BY STAGE │ GENERAL, U.S. Senator · U.S. Representative · statewide and district state │ officers · district judges · multi-county district officers │ ......................👤 THE LEGISLATURE, by joint vote of both houses │ PRIMARY, the same offices │ ......................🎲 the SECRETARY OF STATE determines it BY LOT │ (the GOVERNOR, if the tie is for Secretary of │ State — the one anti-self-dealing clause found │ anywhere on this map, mirrored for county clerk) │ PRIMARY/GENERAL, partisan county · township · city · single-county district │ ......................🎲 the COUNTY CLERK determines it by lot │ NONPARTISAN PRIMARY, tie at the TOP │ ......................⊘ NO TIE-BREAK. ALL TIED CANDIDATES ARE DECLARED │ NOMINEES and go on the general-election ballot. │ ✱ THE SAME TIE, THE SAME SEAT, THE SAME TWO CANDIDATES: CHANCE IN THE │ PRIMARY, A PARTISAN LEGISLATIVE VOTE IN THE GENERAL. The method is not a │ property of the state or even of the office — it is a property of the │ date. │ ✱ AND (d)(1) IS THE ONLY METHOD IN AMERICAN ELECTION LAW THAT RESOLVES A │ TIE BY NOT RESOLVING IT. The ballot grows instead. This is available only │ because a nonpartisan primary is a winnowing rather than a nomination — │ which is exactly why no general-election rule can copy it. │ └─▸ VIRGINIA, Va. Code § 24.2-674 — BY LEVEL, AND THE CONGRESSIONAL REACH county · city · town · district office ... 🎲 the ELECTORAL BOARD, by lot GENERAL ASSEMBLY · U.S. CONGRESS · PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS .................. 🎲 the STATE BOARD, by lot ✱ A TIED SLATE OF VIRGINIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS IS RESOLVED BY DRAWING LOTS AT THE STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS. See the Electoral College process flow map, linked below, for what that collides with downstream. ■ PART C — WHAT "BY LOT" ACTUALLY WAS (the delegation, worked) │ │ The statutes in Family 1 command randomness. Twenty-six of twenty-eight do not │ say how. What the canvassing authorities chose: │ ├─ film canisters in a bowl ....... VIRGINIA, House District 94, 4 Jan 2018 ├─ playing cards, ACE HIGH, suits │ ranked in advance ............. BRADENTON BEACH, FLA., mayor, Oct 2016 ├─ a "Vegas-style" card draw ..... CRIPPLE CREEK, COLO., council ├─ coffee straws ................. MISSISSIPPI, state legislative contest, 2015 ├─ a coin toss ................... NEW MEXICO, state legislative race, 2014 ├─ a commemorative walrus-and- │ seal coin ..................... ALASKA, state House primary, 2006 ├─ a board-game piece from a bag . COOK COUNTY, MINN., commissioner └─ DICE, RE-ROLLED TWICE after two failed attempts ........... WEBSTER, TEX., city council, 2012 ✱ THE DICE ARE THE IMPORTANT ENTRY. The randomizer failed, twice, and there was no rule for its failure — so the authority re-rolled, which is a decision about method made after the method had started. A statute that delegates the instrument also delegates every question about what counts as a valid draw, and none of them are written down anywhere. ✱ NOTE THE PATTERN: THE SMALLER THE OFFICE, THE MORE INFORMAL THE DEVICE. Nothing in any statute scales the solemnity of the procedure to the stakes, so a city council seat and a chamber majority can be settled by the same bowl. The 2018 Virginia drawing — Part E — was for control of a legislature. ■ PART D — WHERE THE TIE SITS RELATIVE TO THE RECOUNT (an ordering inversion) │ ├─▸ RECOUNT FIRST, THEN THE TIE-BREAK ..... ALASKA · NEBRASKA · NORTH DAKOTA · │ SOUTH DAKOTA · TEXAS · VERMONT · CONNECTICUT │ the recount is a condition precedent: the tie-break procedure only runs │ if the recount CONFIRMS the tie │ [Alaska Stat. §§ 15.15.460, 15.20.530 · Neb. Rev. Stat. § 32-1122 · │ N.D. Cent. Code §§ 16.1-15-30, 16.1-11-38 · S.D. Codified Laws § 12-21-43 · │ Tex. Elec. Code § 2.002 · Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 17 § 2602k · │ Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 9-311b, 9-332] │ ├─▸ TIE-BREAK FIRST, THEN THE RECOUNT ..... VIRGINIA │ § 24.2-674 applies where the tie exists "prior to a recount," and the │ candidate who LOSES THE DRAW "may petition for a recount pursuant to │ Article 1 (§ 24.2-800 et seq.)" │ ✱ SO IN VIRGINIA THE LOT IS DRAWN BEFORE ANYONE RE-COUNTS THE BALLOTS, AND │ THE RECOUNT IS A REMEDY AGAINST THE LOT. The two instruments run in │ exactly the opposite order from the seven states above, and the practical │ consequence is that a Virginia candidate must decide whether to seek a │ recount while already holding a certificate of loss issued by a bowl. │ └─▸ THE RIGHT EXPRESSLY PRESERVED ......... NEVADA § 293.400(3): "The right to a recount extends to all candidates in case of a tie." ✱ Note the breadth — ALL candidates, including the one the lot or the Legislature just declared the winner. ⊘ NO STATE FOUND MAKES THE TIE-BREAK ITSELF REVIEWABLE. A recount attacks the count that produced the tie; nothing attacks the draw. A bowl is not a tribunal and there is nothing in it to appeal from. ■ PART E — ⚑ LIVE IN 2026, AND THE ONE CASE THAT DECIDED A CHAMBER │ ├─⚑ HAWAII, 15 AUGUST 2026 — TWO PRIMARY TIES BROKEN BY LOT ON ONE DAY │ Chief Election Officer Scott Nago drew names from a box under │ Haw. Rev. Stat. § 11-157 to resolve two tied 2026 primaries: │ · Sen. Kurt Fevella v. Bob McDermott ....... McDermott drawn; advances │ · Kanani Souza v. Sheila Medeiros .......... Medeiros drawn; succeeded Souza │ Medeiros, having WON the draw, said the process "disenfranchises the │ electorate" and announced legislation for the session convening January 2027. │ ✱ THE OBJECTION CAME FROM THE WINNER, which is the strongest available │ evidence that the complaint about lot is about legitimacy and not outcome. │ ✱ AND NOTE WHAT A TIED PRIMARY COSTS: in Hawaii the draw replaces a │ nomination, so the general-election voters never see the losing candidate │ — whereas Nevada's nonpartisan rule at Part B would have advanced both. │ Two states, the same tie, and one of them has an answer that costs nothing. │ └─ VIRGINIA HOUSE DISTRICT 94 — 11,607 TO 11,607, DRAWN 4 JANUARY 2018 The names went into film canisters, the canisters into a bowl, and the draw seated the Republican incumbent. Republicans kept the chamber; the other result was a 50-50 House of Delegates. ✱ THE TIE WAS MANUFACTURED BY A MARK-VALIDITY RULING. The race was not tied until a recount court re-examined one ballot, found the mark next to the Democrat's name SLASHED THROUGH, and read it as a vote for the Republican. One voter's ambiguous paper, read under the standards mapped on the ballot marking validity crosswalk, created the tie; a bowl resolved it; and control of a state legislature turned on both. ✱ AND THE VIRGINIA ORDERING FROM PART D WAS LIVE HERE. The losing candidate could have petitioned for a recount AFTER the draw, under § 24.2-674. What stopped it was not the statute but the legislature's own calendar: the session convened 10 January, six days later, and no recount panel could be convened in time. ✱ A STATUTORY RIGHT DEFEATED BY A SITTING DATE. ■ PART F — WHAT NO STATE TIE-BREAK CAN REACH │ ├─ U.S. Const. art. I § 5 cl. 1 makes EACH CHAMBER OF CONGRESS the judge of the │ elections and returns of its own members. │ ✱ SO TENNESSEE'S PROVISION GIVING A TIED U.S. HOUSE SEAT TO THE GOVERNOR, AND │ VIRGINIA'S AND NEVADA'S PROVISIONS RESOLVING TIED CONGRESSIONAL SEATS BY LOT │ OR BY LEGISLATIVE VOTE, PRODUCE A CERTIFICATE AND NOT A MEMBER. The House │ seats whom it chooses to seat, and may decline. The state procedure is │ evidence of a result, which art. I § 5 leaves the chamber free to weigh. │ → the federal track is the Federal Contested Elections Act; the state-side │ forum map is the state election contest crosswalk. Both linked below. │ ⊘ NO REPORTED CASE FOUND in which a chamber refused to seat the winner of a │ state tie-break. [unconfirmed whether one exists] — see Note 8. │ └─ AND THE PRIOR QUESTION THIS MAP DOES NOT ANSWER: whether the totals were right. A tie is a number, and every instrument that produces or checks that number sits upstream — how a ballot is counted · ballot marking validity · post-election audits · recount triggers · certification. All linked below. ✱ A TIE IS THE ONE RESULT WHERE EVERY UPSTREAM ERROR IS DECISIVE, because the margin of error exceeds the margin by definition. Which is the real argument against the bowl, and nobody's statute makes it. ``` ## Notes - **Note 1 — the ~28 and ~12 counts are definitional artifacts (◈), exactly as the tier counts were on [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]].** A state whose statute sends one office to lot and another to a governor belongs to two families at once, and every published count resolves that by printing the method for whichever office the survey asked about — overwhelmingly, state legislative seats. The figures here follow NCSL's legislative-office table and should be read as *the method for a tied state legislative seat*, not as the state's method. Tennessee, Nevada and Montana are the clearest casualties of the one-column format; Missouri and Texas, which are statutory hybrids, are the next. - **Note 2 — North Carolina, corrected against its own statute (†).** N.C. Gen. Stat. § 163-182.8 provides that where **more than 5,000** voters cast ballots in the item the State Board **"shall order a new election"**, and where **5,000 or fewer** did, the certifying board **"shall break the tie by a method of random selection."** NCSL's table has this right and NCSL's own summary bullets have it inverted; the bullets are wrong. Two further points the statute adds: it uses "new election," **not** "runoff," and it applies only to a tie "other than in a primary" — so a tied North Carolina *primary* is not covered by this section at all. North Carolina is the only state found that chooses its family by **turnout**, which is a proportionality rule nobody else wrote: a new election is worth its cost above 5,000 voters and not below. - **Note 3 — Montana's § 13-16-503 reaches the judiciary, which is the sharpest provision on the map.** The statute's three covered offices are "justice of the supreme court, judge of a district court, or member of the legislature," and in all three the Secretary of State certifies the totals and "the governor shall appoint one of those candidates to the office." Montana elects its judges in order to keep judicial selection out of the governor's hands; at an exact tie that design fails closed into the governor's hands, for a seat on the state's highest court. - **Note 4 — Tennessee's U.S. Senate rule is the most cautious provision found, and its U.S. House rule the least.** § 2-8-111 voids a tied U.S. Senate election and orders a special election, while giving a tied U.S. House seat to the Governor's deciding vote. No legislative history was located explaining the asymmetry. Worth noting that the Senate rule post-dates the Seventeenth Amendment and the House rule has no comparable constitutional moment behind it. - **Note 5 — Nevada's anti-self-dealing clauses are the only ones found anywhere.** § 293.400(1)(b) sends the lot to the **Governor** when the tie is for Secretary of State, and (1)(c) sends it to the **board of county commissioners** when the tie is for county clerk. No other state's tie statute addresses the case where the officer who breaks the tie is a party to it. The gap matters most in the states where a Secretary of State draws the lot (Idaho, Alabama, California, Colorado) and in Montana, where the Governor appoints and no clause excludes a tie for Governor from any provision located. - **Note 6 — "by lot" names no instrument in 26 of 28 states.** The exceptions are Idaho Code § 34-1216 ("a toss of a coin") and Iowa Code § 50.44 (names drawn from paper). Pennsylvania's § 3168 is the only statute found that fixes a clock time (noon, the third Friday after the election) and Alabama's § 17-12-23 the only one found that fixes an audience (publicly, before the Governor). Everything else in Part C is administrative practice, and the Webster, Texas dice — re-rolled twice after failed attempts — are the demonstration that the practice has no rules about its own failure. See [[Determination by Lot]]. - **Note 7 — the Virginia ordering (Part D) is genuinely unusual and worth one more line.** § 24.2-674 is triggered where the tie exists "prior to a recount" and expressly preserves the losing candidate's recount petition afterward. Every other recount-interacting statute found makes the recount the condition precedent. The 2018 House District 94 case shows why the difference is not academic: the drawing happened 4 January, the General Assembly convened 10 January, and the preserved right was unusable in the interval. The ordering puts a candidate's statutory remedy on the far side of a decision that has already seated someone. - **Note 8 — [unconfirmed], and deliberately so.** No reported instance was located of a chamber of Congress refusing to seat the winner of a state tie-break under art. I § 5, and no instance of a tied congressional general election resolved by a state tie-break procedure in the modern era. Both are probably true absences rather than research failures — congressional ties are vanishingly rare — but neither is asserted here. The same applies to the queue item's hypothesised "incumbent retained" method: **no state statute was found that resolves a tie by retaining the incumbent**, and the apparent cases (Virginia 2018, Hawaii's Fevella seat) are coincidences of who was drawn. - **Note 9 — the largest unmeasured cell.** For most of Family 1 it is unknown whether the *mechanism* is set by a published rule, an unpublished board practice, or improvised. Hawaii's box, Virginia's canisters and Florida's ace-high ranking are known only because reporters were present. A survey of state administrative codes and election-board manuals for a written randomizer rule would be the single highest-value follow-on this map identifies and does not do. - **Note 10 — ⚑ the live 2026 items.** Hawaii's two 15 August 2026 primary draws stand, and Sheila Medeiros has announced tie-break legislation for the session convening January 2027 — after the 3 November 2026 election, so Hawaii votes in November under Act 136 as written. Per [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]], six states (Alaska, Maine, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah) have an exact tie as their **only** automatic recount trigger, which means a tie in those states fires a recount by operation of law before any method on this map runs. - **Note 11 — scope.** This map covers ties for elective office. It does not cover ties on **ballot measures** (where a tie generally means the measure fails for want of a majority), ties in **party-convention or caucus** procedures, or tie votes **within** a legislative or canvassing body, which are rules of procedure rather than of election administration. The 2016 Iowa precinct coin flips frequently cited in this context were caucus-delegate allocations, not elections. - **Note 12 — no current officeholder is named on this map except the two 2026 Hawaii cases and the 2018 Virginia parties**, which are historical record rather than current structure. The method columns are statutory and survive 3 November 2026 intact. ## See also - [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] · [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] · [[Ballot Marking Validity Crosswalk]] · [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] - [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] · [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] · [[How a Candidate Gets on the Ballot]] · [[Electoral College Process Flow]] - [[Determination by Lot]] · [[Recount]] · [[Election Contest]] · [[Election Canvass]] · [[Election Certification]] · [[Provisional Ballot]] - [[State Election Administration Tree]] · [[Federal Contested Elections Act]] - [[Foundations Hub]] · [[2026 Midterms Hub]]