Milwaukee City Wire

Sean Lowe has been declared the winner in the Wauwatosa Common Council District 5 race in which the candidates ended election night deadlocked at 702 votes each. The outcome took nine days to sort out.

One provisional ballot tipped the race and spurred a recount that took eight hours as City leaders counted upwards of 10,000 votes in two neck-and-neck races, a recent report on Fox6Now.com said.

"It started with an election night tie of 702 votes each," Steven Braatz, Wauwatosa City clerk told Fox6. "In my 25 years of experience, I've never dealt with an actual tie vote."

The lone provisional ballot that tipped the scales in Lowe's favor was cast on Election Day, and when the voter brought in the needed documentation the vote was allowed to stand, the report said.

Lowe's win is memorable on a number of fronts.

"I'd be the first-ever African American man to serve on City Council in a 125-year history of Wauwatosa local government, so that is huge," Lowe told Fox6.

As the recount that was requested by incumbent Rob Gustafson played out, Lowe made it a point to keep his eye on the prize.

"It's Rob's legal right for a recount, and so I'm hoping that the results remain the same and trust our City's process," he said.

The process included poll workers poring over all the votes, double-checking to make sure the signatures matched up and again running all the ballots through the tabulators. The City also recounted the more than 10,000 votes on a referendum to shrink the size of Wauwatosa's Common Council.

Wauwatosa voter Elizabeth Ermenc was there to take it all in.

"It kind of reminds me of Brexit, that a very simple majority can make something happen; and in some ways, I'm glad because I want people to know, yes, your individual, one little vote matters a lot," she said in the report.

The referendum in question sought to cut the size of the Common Council from 16 to 12 alderpersons as well as create term limits of two consecutive four-year terms for them, the report said. Currently, Wauwatosa's council size is larger than Milwaukee's (15); though Milwaukee representatives earn more than $70,000, while in Wauwatosa they're paid $5,400.