Orange City, Iowa — In a runoff election decided on Tuesday, Aaron Beadner defeated Lisa Burg for a seat on the Orange City City Council.
The vote was 309 votes or 59.31% for Beadner, to 156 votes or 29.94% for Berg. There were also 56 write-in votes. In the general election, it was a vote-for-three situation. The top two vote-getters — Daron De Jong and Tony Vande Brake — were elected outright. Receiving the next-highest number of votes, Aaron Beadner had 13.57 percent of the vote, and Lisa Burg had 12.94 percent. Neither was a majority, forcing the runoff.
Election officials tell us that the runoff system is one of three types of election that Iowa cities can choose from. If a city has a runoff provision, all candidates must receive a majority of the votes cast to be declared elected at the regular city election. If candidates don’t receive a majority in this type of race, a runoff must be held.
No other counties in our main four counties had a runoff election this year. O’Brien County Auditor Barb Rohwer tells us that no cities in O’Brien County have a runoff provision. She says the cities in the county got away from it due to the cost, and the fact that in the last several elections before they got rid of their runoff provisions, the final results didn’t change. That is those with the most votes in the main election also won any runoffs.
Sioux County still has three cities that have the runoff provision. In addition to Orange City, both Sioux Center and Rock Valley also have the runoff provision.
