The political process is a strange and complicated one, with reams of obscure rules and laws that turn a simple vote-counting process into something much more robust. But what happens when an election ends in a tie? Well, for one Pennsylvania county, four of their regional elections had to be decided by ping-pong balls.

A few weeks ago, Mercer County electors had a bit of a pickle on their hands. A quartet of races - for Clark Borough Council, Sharpsville Borough Council, Stoneboro Council and Coolspring Township supervisor - had ended in dead ties. With all the ballots counted, they needed to find a way to determine the winners. The laws of the county stipulate a random draw be used, and the method chosen was ping-pong balls.

The way it worked was simple: each candidate would draw a single ping-pong ball from a container. One ball was marked with the number one, and that would determine the winner. No peeking or other chicanery was allowed under close supervision, and the whole process went swimmingly for all concerned. While this isn’t the most earth-shaking news we’ve ever reported, it is nice to see how balls can help the world in many different ways.

Read more at WFMJ.