A primary election in Oregon was resolved with a coin flip under state law -- but the winner of the flip was ineligible to run.

On Thursday morning, one Oregon primary election came down to an anticlimactic and ultimately meaningless coin flip. Republicans didn’t field a candidate in the heavily Democratic 8th House District in Eugene,

Neither Canning nor Fragala drove from Eugene to watch the coin flip, so employees of the Secretary of State’s Office served as proxies. In a basement conference room, a small group of employees, government nerds and one reporter watched as Luke Belant, the state’s deputy elections director, pulled a quarter from his wallet.