Elections and Dispute Resolution – A Card Game

In contrast to the election turmoil occurring in Iran, an interesting alternative for settling an election occurred in suburban Phoenix yesterday.  The City of Cave Creek recently had an election for their city council and two candidates had a runoff election for the last council seat.  They ended up tied with 660 votes each. 

How did they settle the election?  In true wild west fashion – and Cave Creek treasures it’s wild west history – they used a game of chance.  A judge shuffled a deck of cards six times and each cut the deck with the high card winning the council seat.  Yes, it’s an “only in Arizona” kind of story.  Don’t believe me?  Go here for local press coverage of the event and here for national press coverage.

While this is interesting enough, the winner was a student in my Negotiation class last semester, Adam Trenk.  Congrats Adam for making state history.

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