Lordstown official loses council seat in coin toss

Automatic recounts will be held Monday and Tuesday.

WARREN — For the second time, Lordstown Councilwoman Mary Jane Wilson has lost election to council by a coin toss.

Trumbull County Board of Elections members met Tuesday to certify the results of the Nov. 6 election and learned that Wilson’s race with William Dray had become tied at 612 votes after provisional ballots had been added. She was trailing Dray by two votes — 609 to 607 — in the voting tabulations that were available Election night.

The procedure followed is for the election’s board’s chairman, Sherron Platt, to flip a coin. The toss went against Wilson, just as it did in 2001, when she tied for the fourth position on village council.

She was the top vote getter in the election held two years later and was running for re-election this time.

Kelly Pallante, Trumbull’s elections board director, said Wilson and Dray were present for the coin toss, though neither party was allowed to select heads or tails. Procedure dictates the way that is chosen, Pallante said.

Because the race was a tie, it qualifies for an automatic recount, Pallante said, that will be Tuesday. Pallante said, however, recent history suggests that it is unlikely that a recount will change the vote totals.

The only recounts the elections board has carried out since it went to its touch-screen voting equipment was in 2005, and the recounts done that year did not change any votes or outcomes, Pallante said.

The Wilson-Dray race is the only Election Day contest whose outcome was changed by the addition of the provisional ballots, elections officials said. There are four other races, however, that are close enough to qualify for an automatic recount, Pallante said.

In the LaBrae school board race, Russell H. Sewell now has 756 votes compared to Roger L. Cope Jr.’s 747. In the Weathersfield school board race, Marilyn J. Besoiu now has 574 votes compared to Frederick McCandless’ 564. In McDonald, LaDonna J. Lunn has 539 votes compared to Jill Sudol’s 536. And in the Newton Township trustee race, John R. Nemet has 597 votes compared to Robert L. Page’s 594.

The recounts for the LaBrae and Weathersfield races will be done Monday, while the McDonald and Newton Township recounts will be Tuesday.