A municipal candidate loses by one vote after not voting

Local elections in Washington state could have come down to a coin toss.

Instead, one of the candidates, Ryan Roth, won by one vote: his own. His opponent, Damion Green, did not vote.

The two were vying for a seat on the city council of Rainier, a community of about 2,400 people about 16 miles southeast of the state capital, Olympia.

Mr. Roth, a landfill manager and father of four, ran a campaign. He rallied voters, handed out yard signs and marched in the city’s parade in August. Mr. Green, an auto body technician whose household includes six children, chose not to campaign, confident that voters would remember his positions from a previous election.

After the primaries were approved, the two candidates met at a public forum with sitting city council members. They both talked about the need for economic growth while maintaining Rainier’s small-scale atmosphere. Mr. Roth, 33, sent in his ballot a few days before the Nov. 7 election. Mr Green did not make it to the ballot box.

In an interview on Wednesday, the 40-year-old Mr. Green said he wished he had voted, but not for himself.

“I ran for other people, not for me,” he said, adding that he heard in the public forum before the Nov. 7 vote that he and Mr. Roth had similar views.

“Two middle-class guys trying to do the same thing for our community, so it was a win-win for Rainier,” Mr. Green said.

Days after the election, the voting results appeared to be the same. Ultimately, Mr. Roth went one ballot further. It took election officials nearly a month to declare victory after a mandatory recount last week.

The race for Rainier City Council was part of Thurston County elections that included a countywide proposal to increase sales taxes to boost law enforcement funding. The proposal has been adopted.

The votes in the council race were so close that the county was legally required to conduct a hand recount. Ultimately, Mr. Roth won with 247 votes to Mr. Green’s 246. State law requires that if there was a tie, the winner would be “publicly determined by lot.”

In the final event of a tie, Thurston County preferred a toss – which Mr Green said could have ended his bid for the council seat with the same result.

“I feel sorry for the people who voted for me,” he added.

In an interview, Mr. Roth said the process showed him that every vote counts. “A lot of people don’t think so, but it is,” he said.