It certainly isn’t the most glamorous political post, but last Monday the outcome of the election for the District 1 seat for the Byron-Bethany Irrigation Board was determined by the outcome of rolls on a d20 (from somebody’s Dungeons & Dragons set, no less).

Let’s set the scene: two candidates, Larry Enos Jr. and Milan “Pete” Petrovich were running for the seat in last month’s elections, and each earned 51 votes of the 110 votes casts in the election. (There were 147 registered voters eligible to cast ballots, which is a darned high turnout.)

As per California state law, such ties must be decided by the drawing of lots: a random contest of some sort. In this case, Scott Konopasek, Contra Costa County’s Assistant Registrar didn’t pull a coin out of his pocket to flip but instead procured a 20-sided die from someone in the office. As he put it, “It minimized the chance of them tying again,” presumably because of the 20 faces on each die.

To further prevent another tied result, each candidate took turns and rolled the die three times. They weren’t rolling opposed checks, as the results were tallied, but after the 2nd round of rolls challenger Enos’ total was 31 and incumbent Petrovich’s total was 32.

It was the last roll that determined the final outcome, with Petrovitch rolling a 13, and Enos rolling a natural 20, to win the election.

CBS reported on the story:



I’m not going to lie: I’m a little envious of how well they rolled, as across 6 rolls the lowest result was a 13 (a moderate success). The player who volunteered that die must keep that particular one in their “keep” roll.

Tell us the story of a die roll you won’t forget in the comments below!

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Image Credits: Teri Litorco

Teri Litorco is Geek & Sundry’s contributing editor, author of The Civilized Guide to Tabletop Gaming (a survival and etiquette guide for gamers), and a YouTuber who can be found on social media: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.