early and awkward

Candidate Would Have Won City Council Race If His Wife Voted

Election workers open mail-in ballots at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office on November 6, 2012 in Boulder, Colorado. Colorado is considered by most experts to be a key battleground state in this year's election.
Votes. Photo: Marc Piscotty/Getty Images

As we like to constantly remind any impressionable young children we happen to meet, every vote does not count. It’s almost a certainty that your individual vote will never, ever make a difference. But in Walton, Kentucky, this week, every vote really did count. The race for the city council’s sixth and final seat is tied 669 to 669, and will now likely be decided by a coin toss. Hopefully there isn’t anyone who really should have voted but didn’t!

Each candidate captured 669 votes, but one ballot McDonald is sure would have gone his way was never cast. His wife, Katie, who works nights as a patient care assistant at Christ Hospital and is finishing nurse’s training at Gateway Community and Technical College, didn’t make it to the polls yesterday.

She feels bad enough,” McDonald said. “She worked extra hours, goes to school and we have three kids, so I don’t blame her. She woke up about ten minutes before the polls closed and asked if she should run up, but I told her I didn’t think one vote would matter.”

He says he doesn’t blame her, but you know that 34 years from now they’ll be arguing about something stupid and totally unrelated and he’ll sneer, “Well maybe you should have VOTED.”

City Council Race Tied, Wife Didn’t Vote