TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Five Leon County races are headed to a runoff.
That happens when the minimum threshold of votes is not met, which is 50% plus 1.
When it comes to why those races have to go to November, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley says it's just the law.
"It's state law, you know you have to win by a majority, unless it's the general election, then it's the top vote getter so I mean it's pretty well defined in statute and we follow statute," Earley said.
To get more insight on how those races end up in runoffs, ABC 27 spoke to Hans Hassell who is an associate professor of political science at Florida State University.
He says runoffs happen in order to ensure that the winning candidate is preferred by voters.
"This is sorta the concern that you don't end up splitting votes and this sort of allows the public a means of expressing their preference," Hassell said.
One race that is headed to a runoff election is mayor of Tallahassee.
Kristin Dozier and incumbent Mayor John Dailey were too close to call Tuesday night.
With their votes only separated by 153 votes according to the latest online data from the state board of elections.
Dailey says he knew this race would go until November and is ready to keep working.
"We'll put the team back together, we'll figure out what the strategy moving forward. We know our messaging is working. We know that people believe in my candidacy and we're going to do everything we can to get everybody out to vote," Dailey said.
Dozier and her team are taking the day to regroup and plan their next moves.
"What we're doing is really reorganizing our volunteers, again, bringing on some new team members, that's what we're going to focus on in the next few days and then we'll be right back out canvassing neighborhoods and doing everything we've been doing all summer and more," Dozier said.
