By CRAIG FREILICH

CLARE – The town Superintendent of Highways election, which came up as a tie on election night, could be decided by absentee ballots Nov. 15th – or maybe not.

When the votes were counted Nov. 5, incumbent Republican Paul Colton had 26 votes, and challenger Richard L. Hance, running as a Republican and on the ballot line of the Your Choice Party, also had a total of 26 votes.

Meanwhile the county Board of Elections has received two absentee ballots for the Clare Town races, and that matches up with the two absentee ballots that people from there applied for and the two absentee ballots the board sent out. But they can’t just open them and count them yet. They must wait until the 15th, which is the deadline for mail-in ballots to get to the Board of Elections. Then all the absentee ballots in all the contests, including the close race for county district attorney, can be tallied.

The possibility exists that even after the two absentee ballots are counted, the contest could still be tied.

What happens then? St. Lawrence County Elections Commissioner Tom Nichols said the matter is then subject to the state’s set of laws that apply to town government, which Nichols said is convoluted enough that he would rely on an attorney to interpret it.

Before NorthCountryNow.com takes that step, we will wait for the mail-in ballots to be counted and go looking for a lawyer only if we need one.

In other places, mainly to the south of here, it has been reported that election ties have been decided by a coin toss or drawing a high card from a deck. More likely, though, is that the decision will be made by a vote of the town board.

There was a third candidate for highway superintendent, Michael Johnson, who received 15 votes. We have heard no expert opinion on what effect his entry into the race might have had on the tallies of the leading candidates.