Afton Town Council race comes down to “drawing” after Primary Election tie

AFTON (WNE) — A random drawing was the deciding factor for who would advance out of the Primary Election in a local town council race.

Three candidates filed to run for one of the two-year Afton Town Council seats, including Dirk Hillyard, Stockton D. Jones and Lynk Nield. Because municipal candidates are non-partisan, the top two candidates from the Primary Election advance to the General Election for each open position.

In this case, incumbent Dirk Hillyard easily took first place with 433 total votes. Jones and Nield, however, tied for second with a total of 51 total votes.

Lincoln County Clerk April Brunski told SVI Media that a recount was conducted to confirm the vote totals, which came back exactly the same after the second count. 

As a tie-breaker, the clerk's office simply put both second place candidates into a drawing and drew out a name at random, with Nield being the winner.

That puts Nield and Hillyard running for the council seat on November 3 in the General Election.

This story was published on August 25, 2026. 

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