Democrat wins Ridley Park council seat with cast lots

MEDIA » Democrat Dane Collins will join the Ridley Park Borough Council in January after drawing lots against incumbent Democrat Dan Broadhurst to decide the 2017 municipal election.

Collins, a registered Republican, joined Broadhurst and two other Democrats vying for four open seats on council, but the two men were tied at 992 votes apiece after a machine tally and counting up provisional and absentee ballots.

The procedure in such cases is to have each candidate “cast lots,” or literally throw dice, according to Election Bureau Solicitor Frank Catania. The bureau instead allowed candidates to select an alternate method and they chose to draw numbered balls out of a basket, Catania said.

“It’s essentially a toss-up,” said Delaware County Democratic Party Chairman David Landau. “They used to flip a coin and one person would call heads or tails. People don’t believe that’s how you resolve the election, but that’s how you do it when there’s a tie vote.”

“All that hard work and it comes down to that,” said Collins Tuesday.

Collins said he aligns more closely with the Republican platform nationally, but ran as a Democrat locally on a platform of finding bipartisan solutions to issues like a stagnating business district, budget deficits and inconsistency with borough management.

“When it comes to borough politics, you need to do what’s best for the borough instead of aligning with a national party,” he said.

Broadhurst, who has been on council for one term, was the only Democrat on council four years ago. He noted Democrats barely missed gaining a majority in this election by a dozen or so votes.

Though he will no longer be at the table, Broadhurst said he has been in close coordination with Collins about the future of the borough and the two share the same vision.

Collins attended the University of Massachusetts and earned a Juris Doctorate from Widener University’s Delaware School of Law. He is married with two children and works in the compliance department for the Haverford Trust Co..

Also winning a tiebreaker Tuesday for tax collector in Aldan was Democrat Jerry Barber, who defeated Thomas Morse for the position.